The Development Agenda for Western Nigeria has indicated its readiness to partner stakeholders on e-learning especially for students in primary and secondary schools across the South-West zone as a way of overcoming the current lull in education as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Giving this indication at the Cocoa House, Dugbe, Ibadan, office of the Commission, on Tuesday, was the Director General, the Commission, Mr Seye Oyeleye.
The DG, while receiving some sets of digital learning materials from the Ibironke Adeagbo Foundation, said the need for the zone to pace up with the rest of the world on e-learning became clear by the fact that the world was changing so fast.
Oyeleye said in order to break loose from the noose of underdevelopment, “no child shall be left behind in educational development in spite of the ravaging COVID-19 pandemic across the globe.”
He explained that the Commission, in partnership with IAF, had inaugurated a cheap and affordable e-learning device for students in the South-Western of the country in order to aid home or e-learning.
“The foundation approached us at a time when we started thinking of digital education. Our pupils have gone home for months. We realised suddenly that COVID-19 is not going to go by tomorrow morning and we are not going to just put the kids at home without finding the way for them to continue to learn. “We live in a part of the world where data for digital education is not that easy to come by. We have to put on our thinking cap and change how we move forward to make sure that our children at home are thoroughly educated. We also have to make sure that coronavirus doesn’t introduce a two-tier education.
“What do I mean by two-tier digital education? A lot of private schools, at the moment, are doing their classes online because their parents paid for it and the schools have the facilities and the parents too have the devices at home for education to continue. Primary schools, even nursery schools are doing classes online. We know, without deceiving ourselves that the vast majority of our pupils don’t have that luxury. Their parents cannot afford it. Does that mean we then neglect them? No, at DAWN Commission, our job is to think critically, even for the states.
A Trustee of IAF, Mr Diran Famakinwa, while presenting a total of 55 units of the e-learning device to the Commission, said that 20,000 of the digital device loaded with data and syllabus had already been introduced to the Lagos State Government to cushion the effects of COVID-19 on learning in the state.
He said Ibironke Adeagbo, a United Kingdom-based Chartered Accountant, conceived the idea in order to bridge the educational gap between the West and Nigeria.
