While the higher education system in Benin is getting back to work, after the government said the ban on classes to fight the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic would end on 11 May, the ongoing closure of the border with Nigeria is creating problems for private institutions and their students.
While the public higher education sector has quickly returned to teaching, partly leveraging a new remote learning system, private universities in the francophone West African country have struggled to return to normal, with one major obstacle being cross-border movement controls imposed on international students from Nigeria, who have been a key component of their classes.
Nigeria shares an 809-kilometre border with Benin, and Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos (population 21 million) is just 95 kilometres from the main Benin-Nigeria border crossing, and just 125 kilometres from Benin’s largest city Cotonou.
The result is that significant numbers of Nigerians undertake higher education studies in Benin. Nigerian private universities are comparatively expensive and its public universities have limited space in relation to demand. In addition, Benin’s private universities offer courses in English, while its public universities generally work in French.
Borders remain closed
With the Benin-Nigeria border remaining closed for now, and inter-state movement restrictions impeding travel within Nigeria, there is no chance that Nigerian students who left Benin when it closed universities on 30 March can get back to their Béninois institutions, according to Professor Dada Olugbenga Olubiyi Philip, the chancellor and president of Poma International Business University, which is located just 4 km from the main Nigeria-Cotonou road border.
“Most of our students are from Nigeria, spread across the northern and southern parts of the country,” he told University World News. This meant that Poma delayed its reopening until Wednesday 20 May, until it could ascertain how many of its Nigerian students had remained in Benin during the lockdown and so could return to the university.
Dada said that classes could be 80% full, with Benin-based Nigerian students getting in touch about returning to their studies. He added that e-learning options would be offered to Nigerian students who were stuck in Nigeria. “Our e-learning platform is under construction. In the next one or two months, the website for e-learning should be completed so that wherever you are, you may not need to travel down to the campus,” said Dada.
That is helpful, but the university head said the lockdown had disrupted its business studies programmes: “Students were preparing to go for excursions – we take our students on local and international excursions, which are now suspended,” he said.
Other Benin universities were about to enter their second semester examinations season when the lockdown was announced, and had to abandon preparations for these tests, said Dada.
Concerns of final-year Nigerian students
Such postponements have certainly caused concern among Nigerian students at Benin universities who returned home.
“I was going to write my final exam on 16 April when my school shut down due to the coronavirus,” said Temitope Ogunbiyi, an accounting and finance student at the Institut Universitaire du Bénin (IUB), a private university based in Cotonou. Her university has yet to reopen because of concerns over restrictions on movement in Nigeria, from which it draws many of its students.
“They gave us a week to leave,” said Ogunbiyi, whose family home is in Lagos. “That was when I travelled back to Nigeria. But before we can resume school, they will need to know if the border is open. I am meant to write my final exams and graduate this year. So it’s really delaying my studies.”
In contrast, Béninoise students studying in their own country, particularly those attending public universities, are back at work following the prompt reopening of institutions on 11 May following the lifting of a national lockdown by Benin’s ministry of higher education and scientific research.
The country’s largest public university, the University of Abomey-Calavi, based in Cotonou, for example, was able to immediately resume coursework with the simultaneous launch of an e-learning platform on reopening day, which will enable students to continue lessons from their home through their computers or smartphones.
A statement released by the government on 11 May said: “This platform will allow students from faculties, schools and institutes with large enrolments to follow online courses during the coronavirus period,” with Benin’s minister of higher education and scientific research, Eléonore Yayi Ladekan, and its digital economy and communications minister, Aurélie Adam Soule Zoumarou, launching the e-learning platform for online courses in Benin’s public universities the same day at the University of Abomey-Calavi.
During the launch, the ministers used the system to undertake interactive video conference exchanges with students and professors from the University of Abomey-Calavi, University of Parakou and two other Benin public universities: the National University of Agriculture, Ketou, eastern Benin; and the National University of Sciences, Technologies, Engineering and Mathematics, Abomey, southern Benin.
The government has partnered with mobile telephone operators Moov Benin and MTN Benin to get the system operating – with students being granted non-cost access to the platform.
Reliance on ICT
The initiative reflects how the Benin government has turned to communications technology to deal with the impact of COVID-19. The disease remains comparatively rare in Benin, although the number of confirmed cases continues to rise. Since its first case on 16 March, Benin had recorded 339 coronavirus cases by 17 May, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The country had reported two COVID-19 deaths by that date.
Following WHO guidelines, a centralised Benin official government platform disseminates information on preventing the spread of the disease, along with regular updates on health authorities’ COVID-19 work. This information is freely accessible to all mobile phone users in Benin.
The government has also established an interactive WhatsApp messaging system that serves as a direct communication channel between government and citizens in Benin and overseas. In addition, the government has broadcast radio messages in various local languages, while releasing videos and press releases to boost awareness across different social networks.
It has been using these media and communications channels to tell higher education staff and students returning to work to bring personal protection items such as nose or face masks, gloves and hand sanitisers for their personal use and their colleagues’ safety. Universities are taking this seriously with the Poma International Business University telling students that if they cannot show they possess these items, they may not be admitted to lecture halls.
As for the country’s Nigeria-based students, there may be a waiting period before they can get back to class. With 5,959 confirmed cases of COVID-19 registered in Nigeria as of 17 May, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, international borders remain closed and the government is yet to give a date as to when they may be reopened.
From World University News
