By Frank Momoh
The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) Mr Kashifu Abdullahi, has said technology advancement is key to teaching and improving learning productivity.
The Director General, who was represented by the Director, Corporate Strategy, Dr. Collins Agu, said this at the virtual EdTech summit 2020 in Abuja on Tuesday.
He stressed that, COVID-19 pandemic and the fourth industrial revolutions have created a global learning crisis.
This, in addition to global health crisis, is causing all sectors and the traditional schooling to change to the new normal, he said.
According to him, “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 anticipating to be fundamentally different.
“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,” he added.
He 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 Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, to drive learning and teaching of emerging technologies, local content development, and to indigenize technology for human capital development.
“The unity board is an hands on tools that will help students to build their skills through critical thinking, communications, problem solving and invention’, and will ignite great things in them.”
Kashifu further explained that, 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 put in place.
The DG however, implored for collaborations with various stakeholders and MDAs to utilize our indigenous education technology solution, ‘the Unity Board,’ to enable our educational sectors measure up with the fast changing world and diminish deficiency in all our sectors.