By Abimbola Abdullahi
Stakeholders in the education sector have highlighted the role of education innovations in solving the challenges facing the delivery of accessible and quality education in the country.
The stakeholders, who gathered that the just concluded Education Innovation Summit (NEDIS 2021), organised and hosted by The Education Partnership (TEP) Centre in Lagos, emphasized the importance of possessing future skills that should be integrated into Nigerian curriculum.
The Commissioner for Education, Lagos State, Mrs Folasade Adefisayo, who was the keynote speaker, highlighted the experiences and the lessons the Lagos State Government had learnt and is still learning from the pandemic.
She passionately expressed how we have dabbled long enough, noting that it is time for deliberate actions to be made in developing the educational sector in Nigeria
In the plenary session, titled Teaching the Skills of the Future Today, the panellists were Mrs Barbara Kasumu – Director of Membership, Programmes and Development, The Association of Commonwealth Universities and Dr Adetunji Adegbesan – Founder and CEO, Gidi Mobile.
The speakers recommended that the inclusion of tech in the Nigerian curriculum is very important and the prioritization of 21st-century soft skills such as public speaking, conflict resolution, entrepreneurship, critical thinking among other, would make the youths more resourceful, employable and independent.
The Country Director of DAI Nigeria, Dr Joe Abah, in his keynote statement spoke on “A Future-Ready Africa is a Skilled Africa.” He emphasized that the Nigerian government must recognize that the future of Nigeria is here, given the huge youth population, saying: “when money finishes, people remain”.
At the plenary session for day two of the event, the speakers talked about how monitoring of education systems should be focused on supporting rather than punishing schools, emphasizing that “Nigerians need to sit down and decide what education means to us and what we want education to do for us”.
Other speakers at the summit include Mrs Alero Ayida-Otobo and Mr Eyitayo Ogunmola, moderated by the Managing Director of TEP Centre, Dr Modupe Adefeso-Olateju. They insisted that Nigerians should be strategic about positioning competent and experienced leaders in positions of government.
They stressed that a strategic plan to train education leaders particularly in the public sector should be put in place, while advocacy platforms that address politicians should also be put in place.
NEDIS 2021 had in attendance many stakeholders from government, research and academia, development and funding organisations, corporations, civil society organisations and a broad range of education innovators.
