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By Oluwatobi Opusunju
Founder of Passnownow, Toyosi Akerele-Ogunsiji has called for more focus on technology for the growth of the education sector.
According to Akerele-Ogunsiji who spoke to IT Edge News recently, even with the way technology is burgeoning within the Nigerian space, only the education sector appears not to have enjoyed the attention it ought to in terms of technology disruptions.
“If you look at the way technology is burgeoning within the Nigerian space, you will notice that the only sector that has not been disrupted by technology is education. Fintech, e-governance and others are flourishing. But education is not enjoying that kind of attention, funding; and talent attraction, retention and management,” a worried Akerele-Ogunsiji said.
In Nigeria, most schools still use the brick and mortal method to teach students at a time when classrooms have been digitalized and countries like Kenya, in Eastern Africa are already deploying technology for efficient and effective teaching.
In today’s digital world, student no longer need to stare at a blackboard or copy lessons from a textbook. With the proliferation of smartphones and tablets, they can have educational contents and syllabus downloaded for learning.
Akerele-Ogunsiji, who is also the founder of Rise Networks, a social enterprise using tech innovation to create access to education and learning opportunities for the inclusive growth of youths, said it is imperative for the Ministry of Education to embrace technology and bridge the huge gap existing between education and technology. One of the core objective of Rise Networks is to prepare young people to have effective value based leadership at all levels in the public, private and social sectors,
Tech Convergence and Education
A convergence of education and technology will deliver the country into a more prosperous future as the high unemployment rate is largely as a result of the faulty education system in the country where students are taught obsolete topics, said Akerele-Ogunsiji.
“You will also agree that at the very core of technology is the distribution of information and one wonders why there is still a huge gap in the convergence of education and technology. Education is the passing of knowledge from one person to the other and naturally the convergence between education and technology should be perfect, but in Nigeria it has not been the case and that needs to be disrupted completely,” she added.
Passnownow is a pioneer revolutionary mobile learning platform that has digitized Nigeria’s high school curriculum as an open source. It is available for students, teachers and parents all over the country.
Since it opened for business, the company has focused on disrupting the educational sector to create ready access to learning tools.
