… contents in English, Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo languages.
By: Theresa Moses
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has announced plans to deploy a supercomputer in a box containing contents from the Nigerian Learning Passport (NLP) in 150 schools across Nigeria.
The offline hub is part of an initiative that would provide free access to educational content developed by Microsoft with support from UNICEF.
Babagana Aminu, Education Specialist, UNICEF, said in an interview with GATMASH NEWS recently.
He revealed that the NLP could be programmed online, on mobile, or offline and deployed in hard-to-reach areas where the internet was not available as part of the moves to bridge the barriers African children are facing in order to receive quality education.
According to Aminu, the idea behind the NLP is to provide opportunities for parents, families, communities, and members who don’t have the privilege to purchase data for their wards to benefit from the platform.
“Digital learning platforms instigated by the Coronavirus Pandemic resulted in school closures whereby over 50 million were out-of-school; hence, education cannot wait. Therefore, there was a need for children to continue to learn even while at home.
“This platform offered increased access to quality education for children in Nigeria. We have to re-engineer education as a right that no child should be deprived of,” he said.
The NLP offers about 15,000 different lessons comprised of English, Mathematics, Basic Science, Business Studies, Basic Technology, Computer Science, Diction, literacy, Professional Soft Skills, Vocational Training, Chemistry, Biology, and others.
These contents are in English and the three basic Nigerian languages spoken: Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo, to provide access to children with different language backgrounds with the contents that they can consume.
He also disclosed that UNICEF will, in a few weeks, deploy more devices to 150 schools nationwide. “All you need to do is have the Airtel sim in the device and login to Nigerian Learning Passport (Nigeria.learningpassport.org), and you will have free access to it. In 2021 and 2022, we worked with them to provide connectivity in over 400 communities where there is no connectivity at all. We know this requires laptops, computers, or tablets, and UNICEF, with funding from global partners, was able to support 14 states across Nigeria to have the tablets.
“We provided 13,500 tablets and over 1000 phones, and the network also provided them with data, and the schools have free access to data. About 870 schools are connected to the internet courtesy of Airtel across Nigeria, including Lagos, Kano, Jigawa, Sokoto, Zamfara, Kebbi, Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Bauchi, Edo, Enugu, and Benue states.”
He said there are over 280,000 users across the Federation, and 60,000 of them are teachers. UNICEF is calling for more partnerships to support Nigerian children, as many cannot afford to lose their education, and education cannot wait. “This is one of the basic rights that each and every child in Nigeria should not be deprived of,” he added.
A field trip to Ladoje Nursery and Primary School, situated in Orile-Agege, Lagos State, one of the public schools where the NLP has been deployed, revealed how children are reaping the benefits of digital learning, which has made learning easier and helped them achieve success in their studies.
A primary five pupil, Abigail Ayanleye, said her proficiency in mathematics has improved. “Now that I can see what the teacher is teaching, I comprehend it better, which makes me pleased. It has given me a boost and assisted me in understanding what our teacher taught us”.
Also, a nine-year-old Enoch Akindele hopes that the Governor will give out additional tablets “for us to take home so that pupils may learn and understand better because my parents don’t have Android phones. I am only allowed to use it while the teacher is teaching”.
For their teacher, Ms. Ramota Alawiye, NLP has made her job easier; she no longer repeats sessions, unlike before, and the students learning speed in class has improved drastically.
Dr. Afolabi Sunday, Director, Policy, Planning, Research, and Statistics Department, Lagos State Ministry of Education, stated that the state government has remained committed to equipping schools at all levels with ICT gadgets.
“The way the world is going now, any child that is not familiar with ICT is out of the world. To connect them to the world, we are making sure they have an ICT lab and tablets for better learning. We are partnering with UNICEF, among others, to provide tablets in schools, and a lot of training is being carried out both at the state and local level so that all the teachers will be familiar with the usage of ICT and tablets, as children learn better when they are using ICT.
“In Lagos, we have about 2,000 schools, and to be able to cater for every child in regards to ICT gadgets, it requires a lot. Every teacher in our primary school makes use of a tablet to teach the students, and that’s a plus for Lagos State.
“When you get to Secondary School, you will see the same thing: they have tablets and laptops that they use. We expose them to e-learning like Nigeria’s Learning Passport. We also have other packages that we use, such as EKO Excel and others, to make sure these students are learning and using ICT gadgets,” he said.
Afolabi said they are partnering with Airtel and other service providers to ensure they have internet access to use the tablets, adding that the NLP has been a success in the state so far. “When it comes to performance in external exams, we are doing fine, and we have been seeing results. Children are able to use the offline materials to help their studies, and it is providing good results for us.”
The International Day of the African Child (DAC) is observed annually on June 16, which raises awareness of the ongoing need to improve education for children in Africa. This year’s theme is “The Rights of the Child in the Digital Environment”.
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