Why Rivers Schools Need Blended Learning Approach

Generally, Public Affairs Management is an institutional arrangement to solve societal problems and challenges. It is government’s response to social issues. In other words, public affairs management is geared towards solving issues affecting the wider spectrum of society as against smaller segments.
Thus, public policy is a set of actions government decides to take in approaching a problem that affects society or a segment of society as against an individual.
When it comes to public policy, doing the right thing is more important than doing it for the right reason, and the best way to get people to do what is right collectively is to make it the best thing for them to do.
Surprisingly, the biggest challenge in this regard is to know and accept when and how the world has changed. Indeed, the world is changing, and changing very fast.
What this means is that teachers, as a critical segment of public affairs management, must know and accept the reality that with the invasion of COVID-19 pandemic upon our land surprisingly coupled with the visible technological advancements dotting the socio-political and economic landscapes of the times and seasons, the learning approach is bound to change.
Never in history, at least from World War II, have so many countries shut down schools and educational institutions for the same reason and about the same time.
This unexpected scenario compelled educators worldwide to think of the need to rethink how this generation and, indeed, future generations can be educated. Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. Ironically, this might just be the disruption that the education sector needed to get stakeholders to rethink how to educate and the best approach needed in learning crisis management and to better prepare the younger generation for the future.
In fact, according to World Economic Forum Report 2020, 65% of primary school children today will be working in job types that do not exist yet. In other words, with the reality on the ground, teachers in Rivers State and, indeed, in Nigeria are expected to catch up with the technological in-roads or milestone in the education sector around our clime.
Realising that schooling does not always lead to learning except pragmatic and appropriate learning approach and public policy actions are taken, the State Ministry of Education issued a policy directive to all teachers in the state to adopt the blended learning approach as the schools resume for the second term as much as necessary.
Faced with the global learning crisis in the education sector, doing nothing in the public domain allows much more to be done in the real world. Obviously, this directive is thus a policy action aimed at giving direction in solving an educational challenge confronting society.
With the over 280 public senior secondary schools in Rivers State, over 300 public junior secondary schools, and about 1,000 public primary schools, the school system require a strict compliance to global best practices in creating learning and consistent and clear demonstration of strategic leadership in public policy initiation and implementation.
This is commendable and forthright. Faced with several inequalities, the support for other alternative learning approaches remains the only pragmatic step to take to lessen the already existing inequalities to ensure learning continuity.
But the truth is the effectiveness of the learning strategies to be deployed is mainly determined by the level of preparedness of stakeholders.
Faced with this stack reality, the blended approach appears to be the available best option for system actors.
It is believed that the mixture of different teaching methods leads to better results, leading to both personalised and collaborative learning with clear goals-set for students and regular feedback obtained.
The post-COVID-19 outlook maybe bleak, especially in the midst of obvious education technology and infrastructural deficiency both at home and in the public domain, the current crisis presents an opportunity to rethink our perception on how to ensure learning.
This is the reason one sees the Ministry of Education directives to schools in Rivers State to adopt the blended approach in teaching and learning as a wise counselling.
Blended learning is a combination of face-to-face, traditional learning and online e-learning in a complimentary manner. It is the combination of offline and online learning in teaching curriculum content.
Blended learning approach which is also referred to as hybrid learning takes different forms. It could be deployed on rare occasions or adopted as a primary teaching method to deliver on curriculum content.
However, the best in blended learning is achieved only when students work in a collaborative setting; sharing information to enrich learning backed up with interactive, face to face class activities supervised or facilitated by the teacher.
Blended learning approach therefore allows learners to utilize the opportunity to learn face to face and online, using different available digital platforms.
The truth is, being able to learn independently and participate face-to-face in the class is not only empowering and enduring, but also motivating to mould a functional citizenship base prepared for the future.
It must be made clear that teachers and available educational applications, platforms, resources and there effective deployment by system actors only aimed at facilitating student learning. Thus student learning is paramount and a responsibility of the school system.
Teachers, as critical stakeholders, hold the hope of the student under them need more support. Besides, a mandatory assessment system is needed to ensure that students are actually learning and teachers are actually also performing their roles as facilitators of learning.
To ensure the continuity of learning during and post-COVID-19 pandemic, system actors must come to terms with the reality that how students live is not how students learn. There should be a marriage between how teachers teach and how students live to create learning both in the classroom or elsewhere.
Consequently, it is the process of learning not the content of learning that addresses not only the 3Rs but also the 21st century learning skills.
It should be noted that it is not about learning how to use technology or even teaching with technology, it is about adopting constructive use of available technology to create learning and how we teach. (Teaching them to explore and question themselves).
Besides, the adoption of the blended learning approach is to appropriately justify the fact that learning is majorly environmentally influenced. It is locally sourced but globally impacted. It is beginning from the known to the unknown.
Therefore, Rivers State as the Treasure Base of the Nation and the hub of Nigeria’s oil and gas economy is poised to ensure that learning and learning activities must not only be focused to gain competitive advantage, but also take the lead to appropriately create the right conditions for functional and sustainable future.
It is against this background that one sees the call for the adoption of the blended learning appropriate as timing, needful and a step in the right direction.

By: Emmanuel Kaldick-Jamabo
Dr Kaldick-Jamabo is a public affairs analyst in Port Harcourt.