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Technology advancement is key to teaching and improving learning productivity, Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mallam Kashifu Abdullahi, has submitted at the virtual EdTech Summit 2020 which held in Abuja recently.
According to him, the COVID-19 pandemic and the fourth industrial revolution have created a global learning crisis in addition to the existing health challenge that have impacted on all sectors. The education sector is no less affected and traditional schooling has had to adapt to the new normal.
“Without bold reforms in education through the introduction of education technology and clear policies to guide us through, many people will lack the necessary skills to fill the new positions in the future economies and societies that are fundamentally going to be different from what we know now.
“Our educators have a responsibility to prepare students, providing them, not only with the knowledge and understanding of the technologies, but also the skills needed to make them work ready and succeed in a fast changing world,” said Abdullahi who was represented at the summit by NITDA’s Director of Corporate Planning & Strategy, Dr. Collins Agu.
Abdullahi noted further that, NITDA, as an ICT enabler, has introduced an award- winning EdTech solution: ‘The Unity Board’ with an IoT/AI STEAM Education Platform, championed by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami.
The ‘The Unity Board’ is designed to drive learning and teaching of emerging technologies, local content development, and to indigenize technology for human capital development.
“The Unity Board is a hands-on tool that will help students to build their skills through critical thinking, communications, problem solving and invention, and will ignite great things in them,” added the NITDA’s boss.
According to him, the educational tools, techniques and curriculum used for decades by the sector may no longer be of use, hence, the need for these skills, like Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence(AI), Robotics, Virtual Reality, Cloud Computing, 3D printing, and many more be built into current educational curricula.
He advised on the need for collaborations among various stakeholders and ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to utilize the country’s indigenous education technology solutions such as the ‘Unity Board’ to enable the educational sector measure up with the fast-changing world.
