The Federal Government,
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and partners have launched the Nigeria
Learning Passport (NLP), an online,
mobile learning platform that will provide
continuous education.
Vice President Yemi
Osinbajo, who spoke at the Launch of the learning passport on Thursday in
Abuja, said that the passport would also soon be on an offline learning
platform for students’ easy accessibility.
Osinbajo said that this
would provide continuous education to three million learners in 2022 alone, and
a total of 12 million by 2025.
The vice president was
represented at the event by the Minister of State for Education, Mr Chukwuemeka
Nwajiuba .
“To ensure continuity
of learning for all children and the resilience of education systems to future
shocks, we must change and reimagine the education sector.
“Deploying innovations
that rethink the current methodologies, including new approaches to delivering
education in ways that defy the digital divide, and ensuring learning
continuity in emergencies, has become imperative,” he said.
He added that the
Nigerian Learning Passport was designed for pre-primary, primary and secondary
school learning children, youth, and teachers.
He said that it also
has access to a digitalised curriculum and providing learning materials in all
core curriculum subjects for primary one to six, and all Junior and Senior
Secondary School classes.
According to him, the
Federal Government has been committed to basic education but we have seen gaps which
the learning passport is designed to address.
He highlighted some
challenges that would come with the platform ranging from connectivity, lack of
power and affordability of the device.
He, therefore, said
that though platform would be a huge capital drain project, adding that these
challenges were unsurmountable with collaborations.
He called on UNICEF to
invest in the country’s local equipment as this would make the equipment
accessible for all.
The Minister of
Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, represented by the Acting Permanent Secretary in
the ministry, Mr David Gende, said that investment in education was a
perogative for improved economic stability.
Adamu said that the
effect of the COVID-19 pandemic was a sign that investment was required to
generate the type of human capital to close the inequality gaps.
He, therefore,
commended the initiative saying this would make children participate fully and
have quality access to education.
Also, in a goodwill
message, Mrs Catherine Russell, UNICEF’s
Executive Director, said the passport would enable a learner to register on the
platform using any device with a web browser, or through the NLP mobile application.
Russell said this would
also help to access a variety of high-quality learning content.
According to her, with
the launch, Nigeria has joined 20 other countries in the world where the
Learning Passport is reaching children with improved learning opportunities.
“Before COVID-19, about
10.5 million Nigerian children aged between five and 14 were not in school.
Today in Nigeria, more than 9.7 million children are at risk of never returning
to school, their learning left behind.
“The Learning Passport
can help change that
by offering simple, easy,
and fun ways to learn, as well as tailor-made training programmes.
” The learning passport
will help respond to the needs of every child. With online, offline, and mobile
options, it can help us reach the most vulnerable and marginalized learners,”
Russell said.
In the same vein, Mr
Peter Hawkins, UNICEF Representative in Nigeria, said that Nigeria’s education
sector had faced many challenges and had contributed to keeping more than 10.5
million children out of school in Africa’s most populous nation.
Hawkins said that one
of the challenges was access to quality learning, exacerbated in recent times
by attacks on learning institutions and abduction of students.
He said that education
had been interrupted occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic adding that the
learning passport was to find a solution to children’s education.
He said that the lack of connectivity affects low-income
countries and rural regions in greater proportions and puts children and youth
in these areas at greater risk of missing out on education, perpetuating
inequalities.
“Both the digital
divide and COVID-19 have shown us that we must innovate to help Nigerian
children fulfil their right to an education.
” I see the deployment
of the learning passport as an opportunity to narrow digital inequalities,
reach the most marginalised; empower girls and young women, and prepare
workforces for the future.
” To achieve that, we
need government to take ownership, and we need to engage young people. We also
need to leverage innovation, widen models of cooperation, and ensure private
sector collaboration.
“And we also need to
ensure that resources coming downstream to drive the recovery from COVID-19
have a strong focus on education, connectivity, access to devices and
affordable data,” he said.
Hawkins, however,
assured of UNICEF’s commitments to co-creating and co-leading an initiative to
strengthen collaboration and accelerate progress on digital learning and skills
across Nigeria in the next few years.
Mr Charles North,
Acting Chief Executive Officer, Global Partnership for Education (GPE), who
spoke virtually, said the launch would provide a continuous learning as well as
break digital divide.
0 Comments