Online Lectures in Higher Education Institutions in Nigeria During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Challenges and Prospects

The need for online lecturesOnline Lecture in Nigeria became imperative during the COVID-19COVID-19 pandemic period, as that was the only suitable alternative to continuing with lectures during the period. This study examined students views on the effectiveness of the online lectures during the pandemicPandemic, associated challengesChallenges and the opportunitiesOpportunities and future in Nigeria. Survey design was employed in the study with the use of an online questionnaireQuestionnaire administered to university studentsUniversity students. 161 university studentsStudents participated in this study; 86% of them were from the public universitiesUniversities, while 14% were from private universities. 17 five-point Likert type items were used to assess the respondents views on the effectiveness and challengesChallenges of online lecturesOnline Lecture adopted for learning during the COVID-19COVID-19 pandemic, and the future in Nigeria. The mean scores of the responses were used to analyze the views of the participants. The study found that online lectures in Nigeria during the COVID-19 pandemicCOVID-19 pandemic were not effective as imagined; and therefore physical classes were preferred to online lecturesOnline Lecture. Online lectures were marred with many challengesChallenges like unreliable power supply, fluctuating internet and many others. Besides the challenges, the online lecturesOnline Lecture have great opportunities and future in Nigeria. Prevalent among others are increased access to learning and increased enrollment in higher educationHigher education institutions (HEIs). The identified opportunitiesOpportunities show that once the challengesChallenges are dealt with, online education could take off smoothly in the HEIs in Nigeria. Integration of online lectures in HEIs in Nigeria should take a gradual process combined with physical classes. This study makes a call for proper provision of infrastructures by the Nigerian government to aid the smooth adoption of online lecturesOnline Lecture in HEIs. The study made substantive contributions to existing literature in online lectures.