YOLA ( Sundiata Scholar) – The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has engaged 500 National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members to promote digital learning in schools across 21 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Adamawa.
Its Education Specialist, Mr Abdurahman Ibrahim, said this on Saturday while speaking with newsmen at a two-day training of 500 corps members on the Nigerian Learning Passport (NLP) in Yola.
Ibrahim said the NLP, which is a digital learning platform, was created to promote and strengthen digital learning for children in schools and those out of school.“The NLP is a platform with over 15,000 learning content and the idea is to ensure every child is enrolled on the platform, register courses and complete all the courses.“We had a bitter experience during COVID-19, where all activities were shut down, including the education of the children, hence we came up with the idea of an alternative learning programme,” he said.
He said the engagement with the 500 corps members serving as teachers in schools across the state was to complement and address the limited number of teachers available on the NLP platform.”
We are engaging corps members especially those serving in schools, to leverage on their one year service experience to boost learning activities among the children.” Each corps member will be introduced to the NLP, so that when they return to their respective schools they can register more learners on the platform, register their courses and ensure they learn.” This engagement will certainly increase the number of teachers, improve the learning ability and learning outcome of children in the state,” he said.
The education specialist added that the NLP comprises of various components which captures the educational needs of children in school.
He said the non-formal education component includes the integrated Quranic education, saying the NLP was applicable and targeted at all children both at the primary and secondary school levels.“Presently, we have started the programme in some schools and we distributed tablets, routers for internet access as well as projectors to amplify the NLP platform in their various classes.“
We understand the power of children having tablets, therefore, we encourage parents to engage the children on the learning platform and minimise their indulgence in playing games daily.
Speaking on distribution of tablets and access to internet facilities across all schools in rural communities, Ibrahim said various partners are available to support the programme.“We will like to state that there are other partners supporting the NLP here in Adamawa, providing all the necessary items like the tablets, routers and projectors to schools inorder to bridge the educational gap in the state.(NAN)