Transforming Adult Education Service Delivery through Virtual Teaching for Adult Learners in Nigeria

Abstract

Outbreak of diseases of high magnitude usually regarded as pandemic is one that has an expansive impact on all domain of human endeavour be it economic, social, religious and educational. The sudden outbreak of the corona virus, also known as COVID-19 in the year 2019 has had a huge impact on the whole world, forcing everyone both old and young to make inconvenient but necessary adjustments in the way we socialize, worship, study and work in accordance to the dictates of the pandemic. In the educational sector it became imperative for both learners and instructors to adopt the virtual or online teaching as against the traditional physical or onsite classroom setting in other not to miss out completely as a result of the ravaging pandemic. As a result, lectures were taught and even examination administered using various virtual applications online making use of the various virtual applications some of which hitherto were used basically for social engagements. Since the pre-primary, primary, secondary and higher institutions have keyed into the blended form of learning even after the pandemic, a unique category of learners (the adult learners) need to embrace this mode of learning considering their unique characteristics as “multitaskers”. This paper therefore examined the viability of online teaching for adult learners while chronicling the adult learners and their characteristics, the pros and cons of virtual teaching and learning for adult learners and the various tools available at their disposal.