United Nations Children’s Fund UNICEF has called for promotion of Digital learning platforms to increase access to quality education for children in Nigeria
In in statement to mark the Day of the African Child, UNICEF calls on government and other stakeholders to exploit the opportunities offered by digitalization for learning and development of Nigerian children.
The statement pointed out that theme for this year’s Day of the African Child; The rights of the child in the digital environment”, offers the the opportunity to advocate for digital inclusiveness for all children and the right of every child to participate in the digital space, especially as, the education sector in Nigeria faces many challenges including lack of access to quality learning which it pointed out is inhibited by low domestic spending on education resulting in limited school infrastructure and qualified teachers, high levels of poverty and social norms not supportive of education especially for girls.
It explained that to bridge the access to quality learning opportunities, UNICEF and the Federal Ministry of Education launched the Nigeria Learning Passport (NLP) last year, which is an online, mobile, and offline digital learning platform powered by Microsoft that enables continuous access to 15,000 curriculum aligned learning and training materials in local languages for learners, teachers, and parents to adapt easily and quickly as their learning management system in school, for homework support and to ensure continuity of learning when schools are closed in emergency contexts
According to the statement, UNICEF has equally provided 780 schools in hard-to-reach areas and rural schools with 13,500 tablets, 1,000 smart rechargeable projectors and 780 Airtel internet routers while connectivity has been enabled for 186 schools through a partnership with IHS towers and data costs removed through the whitelisting of the NLP on an Airtel SIM card.
In his reaction, the UNICEF Representative in Nigeria. Cristian Munduate urged all stakeholders in the education sector to adopt and scale up the Nigeria Learning Passport to reduce the number of children not receiving any education in Nigeria and improve foundational literacy and numeracy.
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