FG mulls deployment of digital blackboard technology to boost education in Nigeria

The Federal Government plans to deploy digital learning Blackboard, to fast-track educational development through technology.

Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, made this known on Thursday while receiving in his office a delegation of Anthology Executives from the United States in Abuja.

Mamman explained that the Blackboard platform would ensure easy access to online academic resources and address the limitation of the physical capacity of learning and the inability to access credible learning materials.

He pledged to provide necessary support through relevant policies that would facilitate the progress of the Blackboard project in the country.

“I am a firm believer in technology; I believe in the efficacy of what we can use technology to achieve.

“We are at the beginning of major reform in the education sector from the basic to tertiary levels. We know that physical capacity is a limiting factor, but through IT, you can reach practically everybody, and we are determined to do it,” he said.

Earlier, the Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Arc. Sonny Echono, who led the Anthology Executives to the Minister, stressed that the Blackboard platform would establish a Centre of Excellence in Nigeria as a benchmark for online learning methodologies.

Echono said it would also help the country to be at the forefront of the learning management system, saying that “what happened during COVID would not catch us unawares again”.

He added that the Blackboard would enrol about 2.2 million student users in Nigeria across the 253 beneficiary institutions of the Fund.

Echono revealed that plans are underway to enrol other private institutions on the Blackboard platform, saying the move would increase the target to 3 million students.

“It is a platform that handles everything even from management of the institutions to the process of seeking admission-when you get enrolled to how you finish.

“Also, the Blackboard can provide content for all the institutions and the real-time engagement of the institutional ecosystem.

“It also allows us to benchmark what is happening in other institutions around the globe that are all using the same platforms”, he said.

Meanwhile, the President of Anthology, Joe Belenardo, said the technology would provide solutions to students and directors of ICT worldwide through skills.

Belenardo explained that the Blackboard, a learning management system, currently has about 6,000 clients and 150 million students globally and is designed to create additional solutions/innovations, access to networks and give business development opportunities for learners.

“Many institutions around the world started a transformation to accelerate their digital journey for the great benefit of their learners.