“The Education Resources Centres (ERC) in the State Ministries of Education across the countries should be major drivers of digital literacy and technology adoption in education”
– Mrs Omolayo Akinlade, Director, ERC, Lagos State Ministry of Education.
The immense benefits of technology in education cannot be overemphasized, its ability to improve overall learning outcomes on a national scale will not be possible at the rate of adoption we are currently seeing in the country. According to Richard Adeleke, a researcher, in his 2021 study, the percentage adoption of technology for education in Nigeria, 51.0 percent Businessday news
This improvement in learning outcomes has nothing to do with technology itself. Tremendous transformation has been recorded since the recent uptake of edtech following the Covid-19 pandemic. It is inspiring to see the impact of certain tutoring and test prep solutions, how digital laboratories help to overcome a lot of accessibility challenges with regard to science and technology education as well as the recent widespread use of artificial intelligence for teaching and learning. We can only hope for more improvement over time.
It is worth noting that the promises of educational transformation have been included in all government’s campaigns since the television and desktop computer eras. Although adequate data is lacking, it is difficult to say that we have effectively leveraged any form of technological innovation to improve students’ learning outcomes and prepare them for the future of work. A report by the National Bureau of Statistics shows that 66% of Nigerian graduates are unemployable.
Therefore, if anything is going to change in this era of modern technologies – smartboard, digital assessment, and ChatGPT, we will require aggressive intervention by education stakeholders and policymakers. In a 2022 poll conducted in respect to the Mastercard Foundation EdTech Monday show in August 2022, 73% of the respondents highlighted the high cost of digital devices and digital illiteracy as major challenges slowing the adoption of technology for education in Nigeria. Other challenges highlighted include the archaic system guiding the curriculum, teacher preparation and certification, lesson design, teaching methodologies, assessments and leadership.
While technology as an enabler can be leveraged to facilitate the required changes, the onus lies on the National Education Research and Development Council (NERDC) to drive the desired nationwide change as school leaders and teachers are trained to run the existing school systems, not re-design them. It is unarguable that a transition from the existing system of education delivery in Nigeria to a new one can be very challenging, but not impossible. The National Policy on Education mandates the NERDC at the national level to push for education innovation through the establishment of state-funded Education Resources Centres (ERC).
At the federal level, the NERDC is responsible for revising the curriculum, teacher training, certification and accountability strategies. In addition to these, it is important that the Council passes a Technology for Education Act mandating ministries of education to revive the moribund ERCs making them accountable for increased adoption of edtech solutions capable of improving the learning outcomes of students. As drivers of edtech adoption in Nigeria, State ERCs on the other hand could begin to explore possible collaborations with edtech innovators across the country to co-design and adopt solutions that meet the learning needs of students while also providing continuous digital literacy training to teachers. The Lagos State Ministry of education models a number of innovative edtech integration approaches that can be localised by other states and scaled at the national level.
Technology has massive potential to dramatically impact the learning outcomes of learners in the country, but unless there is an aggressive drive to drive increased adoption of broader shift toward student-centred learning, the gap between what schools could be and what they are will only widen.
