Mrs. Folashade Adefisayo, a former Lagos Commissioner for Education, has advocated for the inclusion and acceptance of technology in the curriculum.

Adefisayo made this statement during the recently ended Edtech Mondays event in February. The Co-Creation Hub and the Mastercard Foundation’s Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning in ICT are partners in organizing this event.

Abigail Anaza-Mark, a program associate for education at CCHUB, moderated the engagement session, which was titled “Evaluating the impact of government policies in Edtech adoption in Nigeria.”

She also emphasized that in order to ensure a favorable effect on the uptake of edtech in Nigeria’s education sector, stakeholders must focus on upskilling teachers.

The CEO of Leading Learning Limited, Adefisayo, acknowledged that while edtech use in Nigeria was on the rise, it had not had a significant influence on learning results.

“If the government is keen on adopting innovation in the education sector, it must give adequate attention to the teachers in training and rewards system. Innovation has to happen in the classroom; the teachers need to be superbly skilled.

“We need to look at how we treat the teachers and give the profession the glamour it deserves. We should also upskill teachers and teach them how to deploy resources to improve their crafts,” she said.

According to Adefisayo, teaching and learning in schools have not improved even after the 2019 National Policy of ICT in Education was put into effect. This policy placed a strong emphasis on research and infrastructure.