Education experts including university administrators in Nigeria have been urged to leverage technology by embracing digital learning in order to deepen access to quality tertiary education in Nigeria.
Stakeholders agreed on this during the August edition of EdTech Mondays, an initiative of the Mastercard Foundation in partnership with Co-creation Hub.
The virtual roundtable, moderated by social engineering practitioner, Joyce Daniels featured panelists such as the acting head of department, Environmental Health Sciences, National Open University, Nigeria(NOUN) Oluremi Saliu, an Information Technology scholar, NOUN, Michael Asefon and a lecturer at the University of Ibadan, Oluwatoyin Ajilore-Chukwuemeka.
Speaking at the roundtable with the theme “Digitizing Higher Education in Nigeria: Opportunities and Challenges”, Saliu noted that digital learning has always been the driver for learning in tertiary institution such as NOUN noting that COVID-19 pandemic was an eye-opener on the many possibilities available to acquire education.
She stated that it was gratifying to note that most tertiary institutions in Nigeria are beginning to embrace e-learning, stating that it has taken the form of revolution with underprivileged, poor and rich now having access to it. According to her, NOUN as an institution now enjoys a robust learning environment with students having access to educational resources.
In his remarks, the IT scholar, Asefon who is a software engineer said the benefits of digital learning cannot be overemphasized noting that it creates room for flexibility and is less distracting. He advised ed-tech innovators and university administrators to provide training and much needed infrastructureplatforms to facilitate easy adoption of e-learning, both by the students and teachers.
Also speaking, a university teacher at the University of Ibadan, Ajilore-Chukwuemeka explained that the challenge with adoption of digital learning does not lie with infrastructure and training alone but also behavioral change on the part of students and teachers. According to her, many students and lecturers still consider it strange adapting to online-learning owing to the fact it was introduced as a stop-gap in the heat of COVID-19 pandemic. She also stressed the need for telecommunication companies and education stakeholders to find a way to subsidize cost for data and devices to enable students to have easy access to online learning.
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