June 16, 2023

As Nigeria joins the rest of Africa to commemorate the Day of the African Child, UNICEF calls on governments and other stakeholders to exploit the opportunities offered by digitalisation for learning and development of Nigerian children.

The UNICEF representative in Nigeria, Cristian Munduate, disclosed this in a statement made available to newsmen in Abuja on Friday.

The theme for 2023 Day of the African Child is :“The rights of the child in the digital environment”.

Munduate said the theme offered the opportunity to advocate for digital inclusiveness for all children as children have the right to participate in the digital space.

She added that digital learning platforms could also increase access to quality education for children in Nigeria.

She said the Nigeria Learning Passport had provided access to quality teaching and learning resources to 280,000 learners, teachers, parents and young people.

“In realising this right, we are equally offered the opportunity of exploiting the digital space for learning and development.

“The education sector in Nigeria faces many challenges. One of these challenges is access to quality learning which is inhibited by low domestic spending on education.

“This is resulting in limited school infrastructure and qualified teachers, high levels of poverty and social norms not supportive of education especially for girls.

“These challenges are exacerbated by attacks on schools and abduction of learners. Both have made parents fearful of sending their children to school,” she said.

She added that the disruption to education by school attacks had led to millions of children significantly missing out on learning they would have acquired if they had been in the classroom.

According to her, no fewer than 10 million children are not in school at the primary level.

“For those in school, the quality of learning is poor; 75 per cent of primary school age pupils are unable to read with understanding or solve a simple math problem.

“To bridge the access to quality learning opportunities, UNICEF and the Federal Ministry of Education launched the Nigeria Learning Passport (NLP) last year.

“It 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.

“It is highly flexible and adaptable, allowing states, schools, teachers, parents, and other users to adapt it 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

“The NLP is inclusive enough to bridge the digital divide because of the availability of an offline module that allows for deployment in rural and hard-to-reach environments where there is no access to the internet,” she added.

She, therefore, said UNICEF had 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.

She said connectivity had 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. (NAN)