Unlocking Global Opportunities for African Youths Through E-Learning: Challenges and Mitigating Strategies from Northern Nigeria

There is no doubt that internet intervention has overhauled the global educational sector by opening unprecedented doors through e-learning with its worldwide opportunities. This kind of learning makes it possible for one to be able to learn from anywhere and at any time. Nevertheless, the utilization of e-learning resources across Africa has been characterized by imbalances across regions. The northern part of Nigeria has its own specific peculiarities, but also remains a good ground for promoting e-learning among young people. This chapter investigates some of the available global opportunities for young people through e-learning, despite various challenges that have been identified, and provides mitigating strategies that will help nations in the continent take advantage of e-learning to effectively equip their young people to be globally competitive. A structured questionnaire was deployed to sample information on constraints from 132 tertiary education students across Kaduna State, Nigeria using purposive, stratified and simple random techniques while Focus Group Discuss (FGD) was used to elicit responses on mitigating strategies from 16 students and online resources used to build the literature. The findings on challenges young people face during their engagement in e-learning, were presented using descriptive statistics, including frequency distribution counts, mean and percentages. Major challenges identified were high cost of data (x = 1.97), time constraint due to schoolwork (x = 1.87) and high cost of electronic gadgets (x = 1.85), while the top mitigating strategies proffered by the young people were provision of free Wi-Fi in public centers and equipping learning institutions with modern class Information and Communication Technology (ICT) facilities. The study recommended more funding for tertiary institutions across Africa to enable them to invest in digital learning and to enable them offer incentives to active e-learning participants.