Director-general, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa, has stressed the need for digital innovation and creativity to positively change the nation’s education outlook.
In a statement issued yesterday by the spokesman of NITDA, Hadiza Umar, she said Inuwa made the call while speaking at the maiden National Conference on Functional Education at Bilyaminu Polytechnic, Hadejia, Jigawa State, organised by the Centre for Semi-arid Research and Development.
He said, “it is important to seek to explore the benefits of innovations and creativity in order to bring about functional education system for the country.”
He mentioned that the lessons learnt during the COVID-19 lockdown should be taken to the next level to further the course of education by leveraging on the advancement in technology to address specific problems inhibiting the progress of the sector.
“Platforms like Edtech have become a global phenomenon that integrates strategies, instructional practices in education and digital tools to bring about the emerging trends that demonstrators in academia apply to build knowledge-based society,” he said.
He said other platforms that could be handy includes; Artificial intelligence, Internet of things, 5G technology, Blockchain, Virtual and mix realities, among others.
Rolling out statistics, the DG stated that Nigeria is ware-housing about 28% of education technology companies on the African Continent with technology startups generating about 3.46million Dollars in 2020.
This, he added, signified that the country is not left behind in innovations and creativity in the education sector to support sustainable development in the country.
He said, one of such steps is the NITDA’s launching of National Adopted School for Smart Education initiative which seeks to inculcate the use of technology in teaching and learning to promote massive access to quality education especially at the grassroots.
In his remarks, the Rector, Binyaminu Polytechnic Professor Zulkiflu Abdu, while addressing the participants, described as apt, the theme of the conference; “Functional Education and Demand Research for sustainable Development”, noting that, Nigeria’s multifaceted development challenges can surely be addressed by the adoption of research based technological innovations and creativity in the education sector.
Source: Leadership
