Digitalising Education Sector with Technology

Given the advancement in technology, and its impact on remote and distance learning, there is need to digitalise the education sector to further drive cognitive learning in schools, writes Emma Okonji

Industry stakeholders in the education sector have emphasised the importance of infusing technology in education, insisting that digitalisation of the school system will further develop cognitive resource-based mechanism among students at various levels.

The stakeholders said this in Lagos recently, during the launch of a software-as-a-service ecosystem platform, called Educatial, that was developed by a team of indigenous software engineers to promote digital teaching and learning in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions across Nigeria. 

Senior Special Assistant to the governor of Lagos State on education, Dr. Adetola Salau, who stressed the importance of infusing technology in education, said technology in education would bring about democracy of knowledge where education becomes a collaborative and self-driven enterprise.

Lagos State Commissioner for Education, Mrs. Folashade Fisayo, who was represented by the Director, Private School Registration and Coordination, Mrs. Grace Akinfoyewa, commended the drivers of the initiative of Educatial for coming up with a digital solution that would revolutionise education in the state and the country at large. According to her, Lagos State government is also driving digital education across Lagos schools through its e-Curriculum. “Teachers and students in the state have been introduced to digital learning skills that are driving critical thinking among students,” Akinfoyewa said.

Tech Education

The Founder of Educatial, Mr. Francis Muofunanya, while speaking at the launch, said Educatial was developed as the next-gen EdTech ecosystem, focused on transforming learning for immediate and future generation of students.

“Educatial comes with more than 20 uniquely different but interconnected tools that are engaging, effective, impactful, fun to use and at the same time, useful in community-led learning. Our platform is built to simplify the management of educational institutions, offering a suite of powerful software tools that streamline daily operations, improve students’ outcome and enhance overall learning experience,” Muofunanya said.  

According to him, the digital solution is able to offer schools with student management systems, online learning platforms, digital libraries and parent communication portals.

The Features

Delivering a detailed presentation of the solution, Digital Strategist and Software Engineer, Mr. Celestine Achi, enumerated some of the Educatial product features to include EduSims, which is an integrated information school management system that operates a robust, secure and centralised data information management platform with a suite of portals for parents, students and staff that give schools full control of administrative, academic, admissions, finance and wellbeing information. 

Other unique features include EduSocials- a social media network designed to bridge social and educational  gaps among students, teachers and across institutions worldwide; EduFund, a feature that bridges the gap between education and funding by providing easy access to funds for students and schools; and EduInteliigence, which provides useful insights on learners and administrators’ performances. 

According to Achi, Educatial is also useful for training centres and professional bodies such as ICAN, Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria, Institute of Marketing, among others. Educatial is also very useful for content creators, study-at-home learners, government agencies, churches, among others. 

Educatial in Education Revolution

Achi is of the view that Educatial has taken the initiative to develop technology solutions that can bring the academia and the industry together to chat about the importance of global development and how it affects our immediate society.

He said: “The good news is that at the end of the brainstorming session, we would have gathered enough information and data to work with in the quest to revolutionise education. The scary news is that we could be stuck in this rigmarole of discussions and ultimately remain non-progressive if we do not match discussions with actions.

“Digital technologies as we have discussed are still being invented and the capacities of the innovations are spreading across all spheres of life, which means that their value will only increase. The time to act is now. We already know that our children are our future but what future are we passing on to them?

Speaking about the shift in education, Achi said some of the results of an educational revolution that led to transforming the school environment from a place where students go to only study a course for a period of time, to a place where the students go to learn about themselves, the world and how to navigate it while upskilling and preparing to make positively significant contributions to it are what we could call the Fifth Industrial Revolution.

Addressing the inequities in education and hoe Educatial can help nip it in the bud, Achi said the educational revolution has addressed longstanding inequities in education, such as disparities in access to quality education and empower marginalized communities and reduce inequality.

The educational revolution is increasingly emphasising collaboration between educators and industry to ensure that students are prepared for the jobs of the future, Achi said.

While calling for increase in soft skills among students, Achi said while hard skills are important, soft skills such as communication, collaboration, and critical thinking are equally important for success in the modern workplace, adding that education revolution has made it possible for more people to access higher education and how this has impacted their careers, and education revolution has made it possible for more people to move up the economic ladder. Education revolution has also widened knowledge on social justice.

He therefore stressed the need for the education system in Nigeria to be rescued urgently through digital technology.

“The level of development in Nigeria thus far has come to be mainly through education. Everyone has a role to play. Since digital technology is unshakably taking its place in society, we owe it to our education system to secure our place as digital citizens so that we can be sure that our trainees are digitally literate and tech savvy enough to exude confidence on the job market,” Achi said.

Demand for Tech Education

Since the launch of Educatial in Lagos, different schools within the cities, including schools located in remote and distant areas across the country, have continued to make demands for Educatial as an effective technology suite of solutions that will enhance distance learning.

Some organisations who were at the multi city Educatial stakeholders’ roundtable in Lagos, Abuja, Port Hacourt, Awka and Asaba, have expressed their intention to partner with Educatial for improved learning and management environment.

They include Babcock University in Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State; Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State; Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State; Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu University, Uli, Anambra State; Delta State Politechnic, Ogwashi-Ukwu, and the Association of Proprietors of Private Secondary Schools in Lagos, among others. The Bureau of Public Service Reforms, Abuja, is also interested in Educatial solutions.

According to Achi, some of the schools are interested in partnership, while others want the solution infused into their school curriculum.    

Software-as-a-Service

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), which Educatial is built upon to provide digital solutions for learning, is a relatively new business model and yet another model that literally could not exist without the internet.

The premise of the software-as-a-service or SaaS model is that a piece of software is hosted on a cloud infrastructure and operated through a web browser, and businesses pay a monthly fee to get access to the software. It often takes a good amount of coding knowledge, combined with a good amount of user interface design skills, to really make a SaaS product worthwhile.

SaaS businesses in general are probably the most complex business models in the technology space.

The main difference between SaaS businesses and software companies is that SaaS is hosted in the cloud. Basically, this gets rid of the need for an end user license to activate the software and any infrastructure to host the software. Instead, the SaaS company hosts their membership. The customer just has to log into their account and they get full access.

Business owners that do not want to invest huge sums of capital in creating an IT infrastructure often use a SaaS solution, and that SaaS solution often becomes incredibly integral to their businesses – such as sales teams using SalesForce or customer service departments using Zendesk. The SaaS business eliminates this risk for the client that is using the service for their business, who usually only pays a small monthly membership fee.

Technology and Distance Learning

One of the major manifestations of the use of technology in education is distance learning. This is because in conventional education technology is a supplement to the teacher and used by the teacher to make the content of the course more persuasive. In distance education, however, technology is a substitute for the teacher and not just a supplement. The essential of distance education is that it replaces the interpersonal communication between the teacher and the taught and replaces it with an a personal form of communication mediated by technology.

Today distance learning is a rich and complex concept containing major fields of education and training provision.

A recent report on the study of the impact of technology on learning in e-learning by Professor Nevena Mileva of the University of Plovdiv in Bulgaria, has confirmed that it is generally accepted that the use of technology in higher distance education is beneficial for the student population at large and for special needs students in particular. A large majority of participants in the study agreed that ICT facilitates easier access to material for those studying part-time (90 per cent) and the application of ICT to support learning and teaching and providing Internet access to student administrative processes has improved distance education (75 per cent). Multimedia environments are considered to provide a high benefit for teaching and learning in open and distance universities. 80 per cent of the population agreed that learning is enhanced when text and pictures are integrated in a multimedia environment.

The kind of technology used in distance education is changing all the time. The more advanced technology gets, the more advanced distance education gets. At the very beginning, there was radio and pamphlets. Today, there are videoconferencing, online textbooks, and so much more.

While an audio conference connects instructors and students using standard telephone lines for real-time discussion. Course times are scheduled and can include the entire class or small groups.

For multimedia, course material is available on CD, DVD, videocassette, audiocassette, or other types of stored media. Multimedia courses may combine text, graphics, audio, video and other elements. Material is designed to be flexible, self-paced, and modular. In some cases, access to the Internet is required. The students learning choices influence how material is presented and reviewed.

Online courses are delivered over the Internet and are usually web-based. Courseware management systems are often used to organize content, activities, communication, and assessment. Some courses may have specific computer hardware and/or software requirements.