Only 27% of schools nationwide equipped with computers -UNICEF

By ANDY ASEMOTA, Katsina

Only 27 per cent of about 135,000 basic and Senior Secondary Schools across the country are equipped computers, UNICEF National Monitoring and Evaluation Consultant, Babagana Aminu, has said.

Speaking in Katsina at the recent launch of Nigeria Learning Passport (NLP), a digital learning platform delivered by UNICEF and Federal Ministry of Education, Aminu noted that about 92 per cent of the schools with computers were without access to internet while only a quarter of the schools had electricity.

The implication of this, he said, was that only about 47% of about two million teachers in the country were computer literate and about 30,000 trained on digital learning.

This is also hindering the effort aimed at addressing learning crisis affecting teeming displaced or refugee children and youth uprooted from their homes.

“The Nigeria Learning Passport has the potential to ensure that every Nigerian child has access to learning, whether within the four walls of a classroom or outside of it. And that is the most important thing: That no Nigerian child misses out on education.

“Education isn’t just a fundamental right; it’s the fulcrum around which the engine of development resolves. Education is the engine of the progress of any society,” he said.

Aminu, who noted that the NLP planned to reach 4.5m learners by 2023 and 12m by 2025, maintained that with additional support, all teachers had to be trained on how to integrate technology in classroom instructional practice.