Sidmach Technologies Nigeria is in partnership with the National Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) to introduce a new software called NERDC e-Curriculum Portal.
The new portal, launched in Abuja, signals a new era in education development.
Complete solution
The solution is a complete tool which makes teaching and learning easier, faster, better, anywhere, and at any time. It provides an interactive, analytic, and collaborative learning environment for teachers and students.
Sidmach Technologies Managing Director, Hassan Alao, said e-Curriculum is a curriculum in an electronic format accessible online.
All the features are browser-based, which allow schools, teachers, students, and the general public anytime-anywhere access to curriculum-based information depending on the role of the user.
“We are creating a new culture of learning in Nigeria. I tell you, a teacher in front of 30 students can’t penetrate individual student as much as technology will do,” he added.
NERDC Executive Secretary, Godswill Obioma, said the initiative is based on a public private partnership (PPP) and borne out of the fact that when government provides policy, development in its generic manner can flourish.
His words: “The objective of the PPP arrangement is to, among other things, harness the potentials of the private sector in tackling the challenges of access, education standards and quality, curriculum and teacher development, funding, as well as re-orientation for positive national values.
“It is this belief that yielded the present collaboration with Sidmach Technologies for the development of the e-curriculum for senior secondary education. It is hoped that similar efforts will be invested in the revised nine-year Basic Education Curriculum subsequently.”
The curriculum is downloadable, provides contents to aid teachers in preparing scheme of work and lesson plan, and makes structural contents available.
The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), which is responsible for the development and implementation of information communication technology (ICT) policies, seeks to raise the tempo of activities in the industry.
Target set by NITDA
NITDA Director General, Peter Jack, disclosed in Abuja plans that will ensure proper regulation.
The NITDA Act 2007 mandates it to regulate, monitor, evaluate, and verify progress in the ICT industry, under the supervision and coordination of the Communications Technology Ministry.
Although Nigeria has made much progress in the industry, Jack noted, “there is need for renewed moves, focus, and activities to ensure that the tempo that has been generated is further strengthened so that we can take this industry with renewed vigour to greater heights.”
He pledged that the NITDA will not relent in bridging ICT gap in Nigeria through programmes and policies targeted at developing the sector.
The agency, in highlighting some of its achievements, said though the journey of the last few years has been eventful with its ICT programmes and projects spreading countrywide, it will do more to promote ICT usage and adoption in the public and private sectors.
The NITDA creates the framework for the planning, research, development, standardisation, application, coordination, monitoring, evaluation, and regulation of ICT practices, activities, and systems.
These include providing universal access for ICT and systems penetration in rural, urban, and under-served areas.