Digital smart school begins in Rivers

Rivers State Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) and the Rivers State Universal Basic Education Board (RSUBEB), have commenced the construction of a modern digital smart basic school in the state.

The project which is in conjunction with the Federal Government, is being carried out as part of government’s efforts to realise its dream of making the Nigeria’s educational system a global digital community and has a 14-month completion schedule.

The school, which is a pilot modern basic education facility, is designed by UBEC in collaboration with RSUBEB to entrench digitisation of  Information and Communication Technology  (ICT)-driven basic education system across the 36 states and the  Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.

National Consultant, UBEC Smart School Project, Professor Masud Abdulkarim, told journalists at a brief handover ceremony of the proposed smart school site to UBEC by RSUBEB at the Community Primary School, Uzuoba in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of the state, that the school was designed to incorporate digital technology into the basic education system in the country, which he said, has been in practice in advanced countries for years.

He stated that the desire of the Federal Government was to ensure that Nigerian children were not left out in the digital space; saying that the school would have great impact on the youth and give them equal opportunity to compete globally in the technology world.

He described the school as the first of its kind in the history of the country, adding that the school would have four categories that would take care of the nursery, handicapped, primary as well as junior secondary students with a maximum of 35 people per class of two streams.

Abdulkarim noted that with the strategy, about 700 children would be enrolled into the school; adding that the school would afford the children the opportunity to become  engineers, artificial intelligence (AI) engineers and ICT experts.

He commended the state government for the provision of the site for the construction of the smart school as he described the site as the most suitable across the 23 states so far visited.

“Let me thank the RSUBEB for the site, in fact, it is the best and most suitable site among the 23 states we have so far visited because it has an existing school structure with a fence to protect our equipment and infrastructure.  Also, the project will impact on the schools around because they will benefit from our Wi-Fi,” he stated.

Abdulkarim called on the host community to  guard the project as a growing child, till its maturity to adult stage, saying that they were important stakeholders in the project.

Also, speaking on behalf of the Chairman of RSUBEB), Venerable Fyneface Akah, a commissioner in the board, Chief Faith Amaso, called for synergy between the contractors and host community in order to remove every impediment that may affect the delivery of the project on schedule.

Akah  said  that the project, when completed, would improve basic education in the state  and expressed happiness over the commencement of the project in the state.

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