The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) Mr. Kashifu Inuwa has advocated for the advancement in technology to aid teaching and learning in Nigeria, especially as Covid-19 has disrupted the education system.
The NITDA DG, who stated this yesterday at the virtual EdTech summit 2020 in Abuja, added that technology advancement is key to teaching and improving learning productivity.
“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,” the DG, who was represented by Director, Corporate Strategy, Dr. Collins Agu, said.
He stressed that, COVID-19 pandemic and the fourth industrial revolutions have created a global learning crisis. Thus, educators in Nigeria 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 disclosed 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 a hand 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.