The fundamental role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the modern world of education as well as other spheres of human endeavour cannot be over emphasised. The adoption of ICT in education has proven to be essential for students at the elementary and secondary levels as it helps to imbue in the students a high level of scholarly drive preparatory when advancing in academic pursuits.
The Economic Commission for Africa in one of its report recently posited that many African counties are still stagnant in ICT applications and usage.
In furtherance, to resolving this problem and harnessing the numerous benefits of ICT in education, the Federal Government adopted and integrated ICT into its educational curriculum under the National Policy on Education in 2004. This enactment was saddled with the responsibility of providing ICT basic infrastructure and training at both primary and secondary school levels.
This Ministerial Initiative towards the adoption of ICT and e-Education represents a step towards achieving the unified global educational goal of, ensuring equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all as mandated by UNESCO’s ‘Education for All’ and United Nation’s ‘Sustainable Development Goal’ global movement.
In achieving the unified global educational goal of providing quality education, the Government has been faced with funding inadequacies across all levels. This huge funding gap manifests in shortage of facilities for both students and teachers, and lack of proper maintenance carried out on the available facilities. This gap is being creatively filled through a renewed interest by Government to involve private organisations that focus strongly on developing quality education using the ICT platform.
In 2014, the Government’s reinforced its commitment to growing Nigeria’s education sector by partnering with the Private firm of SIDMACH through the initiation and development of the ‘NERDC/SIDMACH e-curriculum portal’ a web-based, efficient and effective curriculum delivery solution for learners, teachers, education managers and other stakeholders.
The objective of this Public Private Partnership arrangement is to, among others, harness the potentials of the private sector in tackling the challenges of access to the Basic and Senior secondary education curriculum; education standards, quality and teacher development.
Through this web based platform, it is expected that both online and offline access to the prescribed national curricula in all subjects offered at the Basic and Senior Secondary Education levels in Nigeria are easily accessible to students, teachers and other concerned stakeholders.
Adamu Adamu, Minister of Education in his assessment of the platform observed that, this unique technological solution will no doubt take the educational system one step further towards the attainment of global competiveness and thereby systematically bring about change, not just a change but a positive change in the education sector.
“The application of this e-curriculum solution will significantly curb the current problem of shortage of curricula in our public schools across the country”, he said.
He said further that, education and indeed national development is an endeavour that requires the involvement of every individual, body, and organisation whether private or public.
In his observation, Peter Arogundade, the Managing Director, SIDMACH Technologies Nigeria Limited noted that, ‘technology is an enabler, thus, the e-curriculum adoption will greatly enhance Nigeria’s educational system in order to produce better skilled and equipped teachers as well as parents who are empowered to help their wards achieve academic excellence.
According to him, the e-curriculum portal is a complete teaching and learning tool which helps teachers and students teach and learn better, using the NERDC approved curriculum adding that adoption and use of this e- resource will make work smarter and lives better.
With the e-curriculum portal, students and parents now have online access to subject descriptions, prerequisites, objectives and the National Curriculum content standards; it also assists the Policy-makers, Federal Ministry of Education (FME), State Ministries of Education (SMoE), and Local Education Authorities (LGEAs) in standardising curriculum across all schools under their jurisdiction and ensure that the curriculum is aligned with the National Curriculum content standards.
The e-curriculum portal is beneficial because it seeks to encourage, mentor and assist teachers to create collaboration groups and form networks to plan what is going to be taught, when it will be taught and the related tools and resources for instruction. It also enhances the actualisation of NERDC’s efforts in providing the educational system with functional, sustainable, needs-driven, globally competitive curriculum and learner resources among other benefits.
In consideration, that education is a long life process, the timely arrival of e-curriculum and its subsequent adoption in schools across the country will contribute towards improving educational standards, providing an enabling environment for learning and enhancing the pivotal role of education in the socio-economic development of the nation.
Kelechi Ewuzie
