Covid-19 Pandemic Sees Free Virtual Math Classes in Nigeria

School is Still Out

As in many countries around the globe, schools in Nigeria have been closed for months in light of the Covid-19 pandemic which has negatively impacted regular school sessions in order to uphold social distancing and prevent further spread of the coronavirus. A blow to the already challenged educational system in the country as parents — many who now find themselves out of work, struggle to make ends meet while also having the additional task of ensuring that their children stay academically up to the dates.

Final Year Exam Preparation Help

Students of the graduating class feel an added pressure as they still will be required to pass the end of year national exams to complete their secondary schooling which is essential if they want a chance at a decent professional future in the nation’s competitive work culture.

As adequate exam preparation during the lockdown is both tricky and scarce, 36-year old Basirat Ajayi — a mathematics teacher in the business hub, Lagos, is providing a service to alleviate this problem: free online math classes.

The altruistic mathematics teacher explains what she does, " I do short videos of mathematics class, I send it to them like three minutes videos, five minutes maximum. I send it to them, then they watch the video, they respond to it then I send classwork and assignments."

Free Virtual Math Classes

She began offering these free mathematics classes online around six months ago in the form of videos usually no more than five minutes long which she posts on social media networks Twitter and Instagram — and even WhatsApp. Ajayi shares her insight on why this has proven successful, "The role of technology has really been helpful, because if you look at COVID, COVID is here with both positive and negative impacts. The positive impact is that we can use technology to teach our students now, which I am very, very happy about."

An International Success

Now she boasts over 1,000 students who hail from across Nigeria — and some, even from abroad as per a recent request from Canada. The students view her videos, respond to her questions, and occasionally Ajayi even gives them homework which she even grades. Fortune Declan, a 17-year-old student, is happy with the experience, "Originally when I started learning differentiation on my own it was kind of twitchy but when I joined the online maths platform, I started slowly at first but with the way my maths teacher was teaching, holding the sessions, I started learning differentiation rapidly."