Balance physical, virtual learning to accomplish total development, Mammah urges Nigerians

By Millicent Ifeanyichukwu

Mr  Richard Mammah, President, Network of Book Clubs and Reading Culture Promoters in Nigeria, (NBRP), has urged people to strike a balance between physical, virtual and other trends in learning to accomplish total development.

Mammah made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday.

According to him, virtual learning and other trends are imperative and our educational instruction community has to be appraised but not at the expense of continuing to strengthen the physical.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that virtual learning refers to an environment where students study a digital-based curriculum taught by instructors that lecture online via video or audio. 

Mammah said: “The physical system still has a strong place in our society and we should consolidate and build on them and ensure that our eyes remain on the goals.

“Technology should help us, not diminish us. It is  important that we continue to ensure that all the processes are carried along against the backdrop of the goals that we want to achieve.

“The younger people tend to embrace more of technology and  that which is trending, novel and that which they see, consider as less strenuous, rigorous and understandable.

“It is also notable for them to know when to take a step back because this is equally significant in maintaining the equilibrium that we are talking about.

“The whole idea should be targeted at building citizens from the infancy to adulthood and continually who will be meaningful contributors to national growth, development, net contributors to GDP and other subsets,” he said.

The NBRP President explained that the whole process which boiled down to education and learning, involved taking people through processes and systems that would equip them with the best of academic orientation and character development.

He, therefore, solicited for policy formulation, monitoring and implementation that would create an enabling environment for helpful balance of physical, virtual learning and other trends to will guarantee the improvement of general education.

He noted that in spite of the  technology of learning, many Nigerians and other societies that a more advanced relatively have continued to depend on physical books, materials, media and contents for their educational purposes.

“The government is doing well but needs to do more.

“ I know that trainings have been and are still being conducted for teachers as part of efforts to get them abreast and boost their chances whereby they will continue to apply the digital system,” he added.

Mammah also reiterated that some of the trends in learning were hypothetical.

“During the COVID-19 pandemic and even in its peak, we had the process whereby people could not necessarily interface.

“This development created a kind of gulf in terms of trying to be sure that even what you were communicating digital was been assimilated on the other side of the fence.

“People engage in zoom meeting, other virtual dialogue and they log in to connect but some will switch off the audio button and even mute the video in addition.

“You can’t even know if that person is still in the meeting, so the meeting can be on and the person is marking present but the person may not be there”.

(NAN)