“I never knew how a child is born until I came in contact with the Classmate PC about a month ago. Now I know it and many other things.” With that remark, Mohammed Ahmed, 14-year-old student of Junior Secondary School Deidei in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) confidently took his seat and with three clicks on his laptop, beginning with the subject, ‘Integrated Science’; he showed the reporter ‘how it happens’, interactive simulations and all. “The classmate PC enables a student to go ahead of his teacher”, he added.
Gift Michael of Junior Secondary School, Kurudu, FCT, said she also had her first contact with the classmate personal computer a month ago. “It has helped me to test my brain and learn on my own. Using it is so easy. It makes Maths so simple because it shows you the shapes and everything.”
These were two of the students, drawn from about 10 schools, who participated in the official launch of
The Skoool content, built in line with the Nigerian curriculum, provides digital content for teaching and learning of basic Mathematics and science, provided over the internet, intranet and multimedia CDs for Nigerian schools.
Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Dr. Aliyu Modibbo Umar, who performed the launching, said he was “quite elated to be here today to once more flag off an educational initiative that promises to revolutionise the teaching and learning process in our schools.
“A year ago (almost) to the day, we launched the Intel/FCTA Classmate PC programme at this same venue and the impact of the programme I am told has been tremendous. The students who have had the opportunity to use the Classmate PC have performed well above their counterparts who have not yet begun to use these computers in their class work
“Many countries around the world, I have been informed have come down to our schools to find out how we have been able to fully make use of the potentials of this technology especially given our peculiar problems of lack of electricity and even adequately qualified manpower”, the Minister said.
According to him, “The launch of the Skoool Nigeria Digital based curriculum content today is the next step we are taking in preparing our students for the digital future. This is a programme that will allow the students and teachers interact better in the classroom as the school curriculum will be readily available to all at all time.”
Minister of State for Information and Communication, Alhaji Dasuki Nakande expressed similar sentiments as Umar, adding that it was clear that there was much more to say about the FCT than land allocation. He said the five schools that have so far received a total of 500 computers were part of 365 schools to be reached across the country.
Asked what the project was all about. Intel’s Head of Education Development, IT Innovation and Research, Paul Hamilton said the project was part of his company’s World Ahead Programme, which aims to enhance lives by accelerating access to uncompromised technology for everyone, anywhere in the world.
Focused on people in the world’s developing communities, it integrates and extends Intel’s efforts to advance progress in four areas: accessibility, connectivity, education and content.
“What this is all about is the power of technology to change and accelerate education. We call this one-to-one learning. The students are learning what is important to them at the time that suits them. We think this is very important because students get the opportunity to learn the curriculum at a fast speed. But they also get the opportunity to develop new skills that they would need in the competitive work place”, he said.
Quoting a UK-based teacher he once met, Hamilton said, “The power of computers in learning is that we can assign the students much more complex tasks. Because they’re using the computers to research on a project, complete a report on a project, the complexity of what they are studying, understanding and conceptualising becomes much higher. The challenge is that if you have one group of students who can do that and another group of students who are progressing in different ways, you can create a divide, this why it is very important to Intel to help spread this type of approach all around the world.”
On the cost of Skoool.com, he said, “we have been developing the technology over a 10-year period and we’ve invested a total of $15 million equivalent in the programme. This is being invested by Intel plus supporters and partners. We partner with governments from around the world. What we do when we bring the programme, like here to Nigeria is we take all of that experience, knowledge, investment and content into Nigeria. And then with local support from Shell Nigeria and the Education Trust Fund, we’ve been able to make customised version for Nigeria and make it completely sustainable.
On how the content was designed, he said, “We believe in local capacity development.
We offer to transfer our development technology to local companies, so that local companies can develop their own customised platforms. The way we have been able to develop skoool is that we have developed the key concepts of Mathematics and Science and then we look at each country’s core curriculum and we get an expert tutor from within our team to work with expert teachers in each country.”
Why is Intel doing this? Hamilton said, “For two reasons – the opportunities that technology brings to change in education. That is one motivation. We believe in education around the world will drive stronger societies and economy that will create good market for business in the world. So we see it as a long term development of strong economies and markets, which, in turn, is good for our company. We believe technology will help many sectors and education is the foundation for that. We have programmes in health, small and medium businesses, as well as agriculture.”
Intel’s Corporate Affairs Manager, Olubunmi Ekundare, described the project as a seed that grows and brings a lot of other things. We have had states that have come up to us and said this is the programme we want to use as a basis for our ICT pack. We’ve had states that this programme and the teacher training programme have formed the basis for their ICT policy. Enugu State is a very good example. The teachers we trained are the ones that are now training the civil servants on basic ICT skills. Some states have come up to say they want to set up e-governance. Intel is committed to supporting, as much as we can, all these new areas.”
So far, he said, the company has trained over 24, 000 teachers all over the country. Their geographical spread is such that there is no state in this country that you don’t have a minimum of 10 schools where the teachers have undergone our training programme. The teacher training programme has been designed to equip teachers with the knowledge they need to integrate technology into their classrooms, irrespective what subject they teach. “The FCT has gone ahead, on its own, to train over 2, 000 teachers. Some states are taking it up and running with it without even waiting for us.”
He was happy that the students were quick to adapt to the technology. “Some of them have even gone to win Art competitions using the ICT medium. Some of them were never taught. So they have had no challenge using this mode of learning.”
Intel Nigeria’s Country Manager, David Ibhawoh said the company had about eight education programmes running around Africa, “but Nigeria is a major focal point because of its numbers and market realities. Intel has a huge focus in growing education and its corporate social responsibility programme because it realises the potentials of Nigeria as a country. You can see from the commitment made today by government, Nigeria is willing and ready to move to the next level, it just needs to get willing partners, both as technology players, financial institutions and what the company is trying to do is set the pace.”
He noted that enrolment at GJSS, Jabi, where the launching took place, had doubled in the last two years when the programme started there. “The school had eight classrooms when we started working here, now it has 37 classrooms, it has got a PC laboratory, library, an assembly hall, when we started, there was just eight classrooms and nothing more, there was no administrative building.
“What we are seeing is that government is investing back in their schools because they are seeing return in investment. The junior secondary school group we used as pilot, in their first two months of using the programme, they were performing about 30 percent above their peers, given statistics from the regular examination that they do every month”, he said.
Ibhawoh gave an insight into how the programme started. “We did a survey in the FCT in 2006 and found that the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) is in Sheda, but even the schools around Gwagwalada, less than 30 minutes drive from there, were still using the curriculum from 1978. So what we said was that once we can provide this content free and it is available to all Nigerians, as long as it is on the internet, teachers from all parts of the country can go ahead to use that content to enforce curriculum standards.
“Right now we have done the Maths and the sciences. The idea is to build the capacity required in that area to drive us to the next level. Vision 20-20 will be achieved only if we make strategic investments in education. The Minister of State for Information and Communication has said that the programme would be replicated nationwide. The FCT has said all its schools would run this programme and all its teachers would be compliant. Already, three out of every five teachers in the FCT own their own lap tops and use them every day in the classroom. Even in the West, it is difficult to find that level of compliance.
On next steps, he said, “We see high inclination towards the sciences and arts, rapid and aggressive localisation of much more other contents to include subjects that are not currently on it and gradual migration into a digital education society.”
Will it always be free? Both Hamilton and Ibhawoh said, “Our objective is to support national education development, so it will always be free.”
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Bukola Olatunji
Quelle/Source: This Day, 28.10.2008
