Boosting ICT in education

For long, many schools in Nigeria, especially publicly owned learning facilities, were particularly not in tandem with the deployment of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in the business of learning. This critical neglect saw a major delineation between those in private schools and their public counterparts.

Sadly with the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and the social distance directive, there has been considerable outcry against the state of learning. While it is clear that the pandemic has caused a major shift in all sectors of human life, the troubling reality is that many have not come to terms with the development. Education is a critical subsector in any national life and in saner climes it is taken with all the seriousness that is required. More than ever before, Nigeria must join the comity of nations that have deployed ICT in pushing the boundaries of learning.

At this point, we must embrace the possibilities that these challenges have and do all we can to ensure that we give our learners the support that they need. The Federal Government, other governments and regulatory agencies must do the needful at this time. One of the needed ingredients in making ICT workable is the availability of data. For many subscribers, the challenge has always been access to this.

It is therefore important that the government and the various regulatory agencies must invest significantly at this time in providing cyber infrastructure and other needed ensemble. Except we do the needful, the rest of the world will obviously leave us behind at this time.

Justin Nwabuokei, Owerri

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