BY the time the just concluded Nigerian Innovation
forum 2014 was drawing to a close, there were
positive signals from discussants that ICT led
innovations have the potentials of driving Nigeria’s
competitiveness in education and agriculture for
global competitiveness.
The Nigeria Innovation Forum 2014 was focused on
creating a cross-industry business alliance to
support and harness innovation in Africa to increase
the continent’s competitiveness, as well as the
national competitiveness of Nigeria specifically.
The forum was organised by Microsoft, Nokia,
Dalber and hosted by the Cross River State
Government.
Accordingly, the forum which attracted capacity
audience from both public and private sectors of the
Nigerian economy including NGOs provided an
overview of the link between ICT, innovation and
competitiveness; gave clear view of the current
situation in the focus sectors of education and
agriculture; outlined the potential of ICT to drive
innovation in key sectors to increase Nigeria’s
competitiveness, among others.
Key themes for the Nigeria Innovation forum 2014
reflected two of the key areas the forum’s partners
believe ICT can play a critical role in driving
innovation and competitiveness, including
Agriculture Entrepreneurship and ‘Education for
Employment’ with Power as a key enabler for both
focus areas and sectors.
Time for paradigm shift
At the panel discussion on education that attracted
stakeholders from both private and public sectors of
the Nigerian economy, speaker after speaker
strongly believe that it was time for paradigm shift
from traditional to e-learning classroom
environment for global competitiveness.
Although African teachers may have the challenge
of accessing digital tools as a result of poor funding
and remuneration, the panelists further noted that
teachers who are preparing students for life in the
21st century should be digitally literate. Exploring
areas of intervention, ICT, the panelists further
noted was an essential tool for quality education,
and quality education ultimately leads to a better
future for students and their countries.
Requirements for Students:
According to the forum, students of today may
require a new and different way of thinking and
interacting with information, and a different
approach to the education system overall to be
competitive.
Concerns of the Forum
Part of the concerns raised by the
forum participants was that except issues around
poor infrastructure, lack of skills among teachers,
poor funding, lack of information of farm produce
among others were resolved, Nigeria may not attain
vision 20: 2020.
Part of the concerns is that the quality of education
received in the traditional public and private schools
does not prepare the students for the future which
for the majority does not include university
placements.
In order to take advantage of the 21st century, the
youth population need to be properly equipped with
education and opportunities to do so.
Pay attention to innovation:
Meanwhile, the Governor of
Cross River State, Senator Liyel Imoke in his
opening remarks emphasized the need for the
country to pay attention to innovation for national
development.
“The earlier we adopt technology as a government,
the better we will be in position to deliver services
to people in an efficient way. Education and
agriculture are the two sectors to apply technology
for wealth creation. Cross River State is a
destination for using technology to create wealth.
With technology, there is opportunity for students
and entrepreneurs. Young people should see
opportunity in technology and embrace it”, he
explained.
Use Technology to Prepare Students:
For the new Microsoft General
Manager, Kabelo Makwane, he assured that the
global software giant was committed to working
with governments, communities, schools and
educators to use the power of information
technology to prepare today’s students for
tomorrow’s job.
Student Advantage
It would be recalled that in an effort to help prepare
students for the technology skills required in the
workforce, Microsoft had recently announced
Student Advantage, a new benefit to qualifying
institutions that brings Microsoft Office 365
Education to more students worldwide.
While commending the government of Cross River
State for inclusive and participatory approach to
governance, Makwane said, “We believe that by
helping people reach their full potential, our
business will naturally benefit their economic
prosperity”.
At the forum, there were plenary sessions both on
education and agriculture which discussed among
other things, how best to use innovation solutions to
improve education and agriculture.
Up-Skill Teachers for 21st Learning:
For Chinenye Mba-Uzokwu, Director/CEO of
InfoGraphics Nigeria Limited, teachers must be up-
skilled so as to adapt to the 21st century learning to
enable them prepare the students for workplace
readiness.
According to him, those teachers who are no more
trainable can be given a time frame to learn or
withdraw.
Use Technology to facilitate teaching:
Also speaking, the Commissioner of Education,
Cross River State Government, Prof. Offiong E.
Offiong, said that for Nigeria to attain vision 20:
2020, imperative, e-learning is critical, noting that
Nigeria must give every child education opportunity,
adding that Nigeria must use technology to facilitate
teaching and learning.
Similarly, the Deputy Director , (ICT) Nigeria Federal
Ministry of Education, Uwem Asomugha said
innovative educators who creatively and effectively
use technology in their classroom to engage
students and provide them with 21st century skills
were urgently needed as an intervention in the
Nigerian educational system. According to her,
there should be data gathering and sharing in
education sector so as to know the number of
students enrolled in schools.
Panel’s Summary on Education:
Accordingly, the panel’s summary was that the
current efforts to re-build the Nigerian education
system will only result in repairing obsolete and
dysfunctional structures.
According to the panel, Nigeria should not waste
time trying to patch up and white-wash the
collapsed structures – what is needed is to take the
opportunity to quantum leapfrog by transforming our
thinking about what a 21st century education
system should look like and build it.
Taking advantage of technology, according to the
panel was the only way to create a 21st century
education system that is relevant to the socio-
economic challenges of today, and yet remain
scalable, lower cost, high quality, equitable,
accessible to the greatest number and responsive
to the diversity of our population.
Agriculture should be seen as business:
For the panellists during a session on agricultural
productivity through innovation, farmers must be
given adequate information about prices of products
otherwise the middlemen will be eating the large
share of the proceeds.
In the opinion of Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu, a Farmer
and Social Entrepreneur, agricultural extension
services were not effective, adding that sending
information and getting feedback through SMS to
farmers was necessary.
“Farmers cannot do well without extension
workers. Farmers need to know the prices of farm
produce across the nation otherwise the middlemen
will take the whole gain. Information is critical to
farmers. There is need to have more applications in
local languages that can address the challenges of
farmers”, he explained.
Summarizing the panel discussion on agriculture,
Nneka Eze of Dalberg who facilitated the session
noted that flows of information are constricted and
are severely affecting the agriculture sector in
Nigeria. Extension services which are meant to
deploy some of this information to the farm level,
she said were not being properly managed.
Extension officers and their managers often do not
receive budgets to travel to the farm level.
While some innovations from organizations are
attempting to solve the gap in information, she
added that there was potential for others to innovate
in agriculture, particularly on finding the gaps in
information and closing them, and also on scaling
existing innovations from one area / region to
another.
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