TETFund Targets 2m Students, Staff For Online Academic Resources

Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has said over two million students and staff of higher education institutions in the country will soon have massive access to online academic resources through the deployment of the Blackboard learning platform.

TETFund executive secretary, Sonny Echono, stated this in Abuja, yesterday, at the flag-off of a three-day workshop on the Implementation of the Enhanced Blackboard Learning Management System and Train-the-Trainer Programme.

He said the workshop, which attracted directors of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) from the 253 beneficiary institutions of the Fund, was part of measures put in place to bridge the digital skills gap in universities, polytechnics and colleges of education in Nigeria.

“Given the rising significance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) across diverse sectors, including education, this initiative holds immense students, and the overall potential to positively impact educators, advancement of our educational landscape.

“Online learning remains critical to our collective success, and so today, as we flag off this programme, the goal is that we would have provided the necessary skills for online Blackboard LMS and enhancements to further enrich teaching, learning and research in all 253 of our beneficiary institutions.

“You may recall that for 2019-2020 ICT Support Intervention, we gave guidelines for eLearning and training on eLearning methodologies for hybrid modes of learning. So today, with Blackboard, the aim is to provide enhancements that will further improve the quality and mode of delivery of education across the country under our converged services program. This will eliminate the cost of subscription and technical overhead directly from each of our beneficiary institutions for these aggregated services with its attendant benefits,” he said.

The TETFund boss added that the intervention will ensure physical and online modes of teaching and learning are cemented once and for all in tertiary institutions across the country.

According to him, Nigerian students would be able to compete favourably with their contemporaries on the global stage with the deployment of Blackboard platform.

“When blackboard enhancements become fully operational, over two million students and staff of these institutions will be able to:

“Access general resources to support learning including online tests and quizzes, submit assignments and electronic grade books which allow immediate review of grades and performance tracking.

“Carry out self and peer-assessment and collaboration on required projects thereby teaching students to provide constructive feedback and learn from each other.

“Access alternative formats of materials (including audio, Braille, ePub and HTML) to accommodate students with disabilities.

“Access an all-in-one web conferencing platform that will allow instructors to hold classes online, and in real time, or record lectures or short videos to post on their course sites.

“Access to a community of 4000 other tertiary institutions worldwide. Project Management training,” Echono said.

The TETFund boss said the Fund is improving its allocation to  ICT development in its intervention programmes to ensure that the country meet up with the present digital reality across the globe.

“Prior to 2022, our ICT Support Intervention was N15 million for Universities and N7.5 million for Polytechnics and Colleges of Education. We took bold steps to increase this intervention to N100 million for Universities and N50 million for Polytechnics and Colleges of Education,” he said.