In a bid to drive one million students in Lagos State to e-learning, one of Nigeria’s foremost financial institutions, Firstbank has presented 20,000 units of e-learning devices to the Lagos State government to be distributed to school children.
Receiving the items at the State House in Marina, the Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu said the government knew when it was developing the vision to change the face of education in Lagos that it cannot achieve much progress in improving the quality of learning without using technology as a strong enabler. Thus, he thanked FirstBank, describing the bank as a real development partner.
When we were developing our vision to change the face of education in Lagos, we knew from the outset that we could not achieve much progress in improving the quality of learning without using technology as a strong enabler. So, it is not out of place that we are witnessing more infusion of technology in learning and this intervention by FirstBank could not have come at a better time,” he said.
Sanwo-Olu noted that the intervention came at a time the Government was massively deploying technology to transform the conventional mode of teaching and learning.
The presentation of 20,000 units of e-learning devices, which is also in partnership with Robert & John (an edu-tech company that owns Roducate) is part of activities implemented to close the gap caused by the disruption in children’s education’s due to schools’ closure, following the COVID-19 pandemic.
So far, FirstBank has enabled over 10,000 free sign-ups to the Roducate e-learning platform with the goal to empower one million students.
The e-learning device is configured in line with the government’s accredited curriculum for primary, secondary and tertiary schools across various fields of academic endeavours, such as science, commercial and arts. It is built to promote cost-effective learning as there is minimal need for internet connectivity, whilst learning on the device is on-going.
Speaking on the presentation, Dr. Adesola Adeduntan, Chief Executive Officer, First Bank of Nigeria Limited said “the e-learning initiative aligns with our Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability initiatives and falls under one of our key strategic pillars, Education.”
“We are excited to promote education and have consistently demonstrated this in our support of 10 universities and 3 secondary schools on infrastructure projects; our support of 10 universities with professorial Chairs and provision of financial literacy, entrepreneurial and career counseling to over 80,000 students in over 80 secondary schools in the country,” he added.
The Bank has also collaborated with IBM and Curious Learning to ensure the e-learning initiative swiftly moves across the country to school children and individuals with the need to promote the pursuit of knowledge, irrespective of age.