The Senator representing Cross River North Senatorial District, Dr Rose Oko, has pushed for e-learning in Nigeria’s educational sector that would create a robust and conducive learning environment for students and teachers.
Senator Oko in a motion moved on the floor of the Senate last week Tuesday, titled, “Innovative Education Technology: E-Learning and Blended Learning in the Education Sector in Nigeria”, extensively spoke on the need for the educational sector to adopt the e-learning innovation technology.
Oko, who is the deputy chairman, Senator Committee on Education (Basic and Secondary) said Nigeria can no longer lag behind in the e-learning space, which the International Telecommunications Union (ITU 2017) reported that Nigeria ranked 2nd globally in internet growth between 2000-2017, increasing by 45.699 per cent.
And majority of internet users in Nigeria are among the youngest in the world, digital natives, engaging in facebook, linked-in, twitter and other social media, and so are natural users of the internet, therefore making an extension of usage to education easy.
According to her Philippines and India are number one and two globally in providing skills for the new space called online outsourcing (OO) and freelancing platforms, followed by the US, Pakistan and Bangladesh; noting that the characteristics that they all have are: English speaking, large number of educated youths and large pool of digitally-savvy internet users.
While Philippines, the world leader in BPO and OO services has 54 million internet users, Nigeria has 93 million users- 8th largest in the world. The numerical advantage has to be harnessed to capture the potential large dividends, against the backdrop of the fact that an estimated world BPO market of $50 million annually is largely untapped, and so could be taped into by Nigeria.
She also noted that appropriate broadband technology needed for the effective adoption and execution of educational technology is currently not available, and made reference that two major global players that are at the forefront of capturing this confluence of digital and demographic trends are the Philippines and India with the large number of educated digitally-savvy English speaking youths.
The Philippines for example is the world leader in BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) with its call centers that directly employs 1 million of her youths and indirectly benefits 2 million through collateral benefits to service sectors, and provides $25 billion in annual foreign exchange earnings.
She said: “Developments globally and in Nigeria in particular have shown that oil alone cannot catapult Nigeria economically into world prominence, but a massification to unleash the power of information technology through e-learning by its young, digitally-savvy, English speaking youths.
“The largest economy in sub-saharan Africa, Nigeria must capitalise on its huge human capital and employ recent innovations in education technology of e-learning to massively improve the skills of its workforce, including its teachers, service sector workers, infrastructures, finance, IT, private sector workers and very importantly students.
“Nigeria must use the opportunity of e-learning to bridge the gap in teacher professional development in basic education in particular and its use in e-learning by students in general.”
Meanwhile, the Senate resolved by urging government through UBEC to examine the feasibility and adopt the policy of education technology in promoting e-learning especially at the basic education level.
Requested that the Ministry of Communication to provide broadband facilities to cover e-learning in schools in Nigeria. Mandate the Committee on Education (Basic and Secondary), TERTFUND and Tertiary institutions and Communication to conduct a public hearing on ‘Innovations in Educational Technology with relevant Industry Stakeholder’ with a view to enriching such a policy and report back in four weeks.
