State varsity students lament expensive internet connectivity for planned online lectures

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By AMADOU MANJANG

Students at the University of the Gambia (UTG), the only state owned university in the country have lamented that they cannot afford three hours of internet connection for a three-hours lecture each of their six courses.

The IT department of UTG is planning to provide virtual classrooms for all lectures via Google Meet (the app will provide video conferencing for the lectures).
New timetables with classroom code will be scheduled and the student will access the platform on the Google Meet. This requires good internet connectivity and a lot of megabytes.

According to the affected students, the system is suitable at this trying moment but they doubt its feasibility for them as affordable internet remains out of reach for many Gambians much more students, despite the tremendous growth of internet use over the past decade.

Students said the classes would unaffordable considering the expenses the online course require.

It could be recalled that in February PURA ordered Africell to return consumers monies after allegations of theft of units from customers by the GSM operator.

On his part, Musa Jallow, a law student said some of them who do not normally have units for internet connectivity will suffer.

“Those of us who don’t use to have bytes (units) will suffer,” he said, adding that it will be very tricky for him to connect to all the online classes for his courses as he normally has insufficient bytes.

Mbaye Sanneh, a political science student said it would very expensive to make studies online because internet in the Gambia is expensive.

He said he is not sure if he can afford the cost but will try when the online class commence.

“It will be very expensive but will try to listen to the lectures,” he said.

Fatou Cham, a management said is better to conduct classes online than not having any, but quick to add that the university should put data availability into consideration.

“To have classes online is very good but it will be very hard for us, the students to sustain it because most of the students do not have access to Wi-Fi router at home,” he said.

According to her, many students like her are from poor backgrounds that struggle to have fare which is cheaper than internet.