Bowen Don makes case for programming inclusion in basic school syllabus

From left, The Registrar, Bowen University, Iwo, Osun State, Mr Babatunde Adetona; the Librarian of the institution, Dr Aderonke Otunla; the inaugural lecturer on the occasion, Professor Moses Oyelami; the Vice-Chancellor of the university, Professor Jonathan Babalola; the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Professor T. E. Lawal; and the Bursar of the institution, Mr. Babatunde Kolawole, during the 18th Inaugural lecture of university delivered by Professor Oyelami, recently.

Professor   Olufemi Moses  Oyelami of the College of Computing and Communication Studies, Bowen University, Iwo, Osun State, has clamoured for the inclusion of programming education as one of the core subjects in the primary school syllabus in Nigeria.

The don made the call while delivering the 18th edition of Bowen University’s inaugural lecture, entitled;  Form and Spirit: Software as the life force of digital devices, held recently. 

Oyelami, a Professor of  Computer Science,  noted that if education planners and education policymakers would introduce programming as a subject into primary school and secondary school syllabi, it will go a long way to boost technological education development in the area of computer science in the country.

According to Professor Oyelami, it is high time Nigerian children are exposed to programming education to catch them young as it operates in developed countries before proceeding to tertiary institutions, adding that computer science education, especially software, is a must to learn in order to compete favourably at the global level.

He declared that software development education called for financial research investment, noting that without the software which animates digital devices, the computer device itself is useless.  

Speaking further, he talked intently about his contributions to software development in the areas of spoken dialogue systems and sorting algorithms. Oyelami noted that the main focus of the research was to improve the performances of existing ones and create new ones.

Other notable areas of Professor Oyelami’s research include the development of an E-learning web portal and the development of an Igbo language e-learning system.  Professor Oyelami also worked on designing a biometric measure for enhancing  ATM security in Nigeria  E-banking system and so on.

Following his research findings, Professor  Oyelami resolved that spoken dialogue systems could be used to bridge the digital divide prevalent in developing countries and provide remote access to different kinds of services, stating that their capacities can be enhanced to offer more sophisticated services to meet the need of the unreached people, less literate and those with visual impairments.

He said: “Based on various usability and acceptability studies we have conducted, these systems when deployed will be useful and accepted by the populace. Our research has shown that governments at various levels in Nigeria have not generally adopted  the use of conventional systems   to provide wide access  to  services for the citizenry.”

To promote software development, Professor Oyelami suggested that the government should make efforts to build corpora for  Nigerian languages to facilitate automatic speech recognition of these languages towards developing spoken dialogue systems in them. He also advised the government to partner with academia and telecommunications service providers to develop and make available spoken dialogue systems for accessing various services. 

While he suggested that communication service providers should expand coverage to more areas in the rural region, and collaborate with academia in evolving spoken dialogue solutions, the inaugural lecturer noted that all sectors in the economy need to adopt a spoken dialogue system for wide access and cost-effective services.

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