African Varsities Charged to Deepen Digital Education​

Kuni Tyessi

African universities have been challenged to embrace, deepen digital education and make it acceptable to their societies to achieve its desired impact.
Dr. Olivier Kuttel, the Head of International Affairs of École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, EPFL, Switzerland, gave the charge on Friday in Abuja while delivering a keynote address at the 2022 African Centres of Excellence, ACE, Regional Conference.
Kuttel said the biggest impact on digital transformation was Covid-19, adding that online teaching was key for his polytechnic to continue its academic programmes during the pandemic.
He called on universities to go digital.
“Digital technology has a huge impact on education, research, innovation and society,” he noted. “With digital technology, they teach, do research, share the result, and the impact is felt by their society.”
The Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, NUC, Prof Abubakar Rasheed, said the NUC had developed the blueprint for revitalising education in Nigeria. But after the coming of coronavirus, the commission realised it had to rethink its approach to the delivery of instruction by adopting sustainable Integration of digital education.
Rasheed noted that one of the blueprints was to carry out a comprehensive review of the curriculum, and after four years with over 1,200 academics involved, the NUC has successfully re-engineered the curriculum of universities.
He disclosed that the commission developed a memo and sent it to the Federal Executive Council for approval, adding that the review includes the unbundling of some courses.
The NUC boss said another committee was set up to develop a curriculum on artificial intelligence.
For the first time in 20 years, he said Nigeria received international students from several countries, and students from over 17 countries subscribe to one university alone, courtesy of the ACE programme.