3rd September, 2014
The Federal Government on Tuesday in Abuja launched e-curriculum portal to aid teaching and learning for senior secondary schools in the country.
Launching the e-curriculum portal, the Minister of State for Education, Nyesom Wike, commended the initiative of the designers.
The portal was conceived by the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC), and SIDMACH Technologies Nigeria Limited.
Wike said that the introduction of the portal was in line with the deployment of Information Communication Technology in the Education Policy of the Federal Government.
He said that the e-curriculum portal was initiated to address the shortage of the prescribed national curricula in schools.
“The NERDC e-curriculum portal is a web-based, efficient and effective curriculum management solution for primary and secondary schools.
“This solution will provide digital access to school curricula, provision of sample teaching resources for teachers to prepare lesson notes, provision of sample learning materials for the learners.
“Provision of content management structure for aiding learner resources, students’ access to learner resources, and access to modules for various stakeholders’ participation in the utilisation of the e-curriculum materials.
“The portal will provide the teachers across Nigeria to compare notes learn new methods of teaching, build capacity through collaborative teaching resources provided on the portal from time to time.
“The e-curriculum portal will be uploaded with teachers’ guide, scheme of work, sample lesson plans, teacher’s notes, e-Learning resources, e-books and suggested learning resources.”
He called on stakeholders in the curriculum implementation at various government levels, including the private educational institutions, to support the project and further strengthen the quality of the education sector.
Prof. Godswill Obioma, the Executive Secretary of NERDC, said the present effort at developing an e-curriculum was based on public private partnership model and government enabling policy.
He said the purpose was to ensure online access to the prescribed national curriculum in all subjects offered at the senior secondary education level in Nigeria.
“It will assist the policy-makers, Federal Ministry of Education, states ministries of education and local authorities in domesticating the curriculum across all schools and ensured aligned with prescribed content standards,” he said.
He said that the e-curriculum portal would increase access to the usage of the curriculum and affordable to the end users.
He added that the portal would advocate information technology in Nigerian schools and encouraging a modern and vibrant education system in the country.
Dr Stephen Dike, Chairman, Governing Board of NEDRC, said the idea of the e-curriculum was to address the gross inadequacy of the number in serving the teeming population of teachers that use the curriculum in each school.
Dike, who was represented by Prof. Chinyenre Ohiri-Aniche, a member of the governing council of NEDRC, said that the project was to enhance the delivery of quality education through the use of ICT and e-Education as framework.
He said this was part of government efforts to keep pace with the fast growing trend of ICT in education in the 21st century, aimed at achieving global competiveness.