An educationist and Chief Executive Officer of Leading Learning Limited, Mrs. Folashade Adefisayo, has urged government to involve the private sector in curriculum design.
She said this would help the country to integrate technology in children’s learning process.
Adefisayo stated this while delivering a keynote address at the Total School Support Seminar and Exhibition Technology, which had the theme: “Transforming education in Lagos.”
According to her, education is backward when compare to other sectors.
This, she said, had made it imperative for the government to involve the private sector to enable it to key into new developments in education, especially the use of technology.
She said if stakeholders, especially government failed to change the way children were being taught in schools, the children themselves would change it.
“They are going to shift everything; they will disrupt the system as years roll by,” she warned.
The education expert added that with the new developments unfolding in the sector, the country had no choice because certain tools in technology had actually disrupted education and the country needed to follow in that direction.
“There is no way we can bring 40million children into the classroom, unless we do some really radical thinking, because that child in primary school today will hit the work place in 2030 and it is going to be radically different,” she said.
Adefisayo also disclosed that by 2030, 60 per cent of the work available now would be gone because the computer has virtually upstaged the human being.
She, therefore, urged teachers to be proactive and develop themselves to be able to take up the task ahead.
To schools owners, she said they must have a vision of what they wanted technology to do for their schools, adding, “We must go beyond the basics and apart from investing in technology, you need to go for excellence at all time.”
She, however, advised technology providers to look at what the teachers needed and where to start from.
“You cannot proffer solution to us without talking to us. You cannot proffer solutions that you think will affect our practice, when we do not even understand what you are talking about,” Adefisayo said.
The convener of TOSSETech and Chief Executive Officer, Edumark Consult, Mrs. Yinka Ogunde, said the aim of the programme was to see how education in the country could be developed.
“We must make sure that the educators are fully aware of all the new things that are available to them in the field, if they truly want to impact the children,” she said.
Ogunde, however, urged teachers to be fully in charge when teaching with technology so that the children would be fed the diet for their appropriate age.
The Proprietor, Honeyland Group of Schools, Rev James Alayande Ajibola, in his remarks, said technology had gone beyond the imagination of everybody, adding, “That is why it is important to have this type of programme to showcase new innovations and how educators can key into it.”
