ShowcasingNigeria’sEducationTransformation SuccessesatInnovationAfrica2022

Major education projects, skills development and the upsurge in investments leveraging technology for education were the main focus of Africa’s number one high-level ministerial forum Innovation Africa from the 16th to 18th November 2022 in Lusaka Zambia.

This 10th anniversary edition of the summit was held under the patronage of the Government of the Republic of Zambia and led by the President, Mr. Hakainde Hichilema.

According to a statement Hundreds of Government Ministers and Officials are traveling across the continent to attend the summit including the following Nigerian officials Hon Goodluck Opiah, Minister of State for Education, Hon Dr Sen Adeleke Olorunnimbe Mamora, Minister of Science Technology and Innovation, Hon Dr Godwin E Amanke, Commissioner for Education, Cross River State and Hon Folashade Adefisayo, Commissioner for Education, Lagos State

The statement also noted that the highlevel Nigeria delegation along with counterparts from at least 24 other African countries engaged with other stakeholders on topics key to the education agenda of the summit.

The statement further noted that among the topics covered at Innovation Africa was digital transformation across Africa’s education sector, teacher training, digital strategies for school leaders, technology innovation and solutions for improving school connectivity, curriculum reforms

The statement further explained that the focus on education in this year’s event is pivotal to the learning poverty crisis currently faced in Africa and beyond, adding that a situation so serious it is a key focus of the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, particularly in the area of foundational learning, main theme of The Education Summit (TES), “ahead of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2022 culminating in UNICEF leading a new Call To Action on education.”

The statement hinted that the Innovation Africa summit education rich agenda provides an opportunity for African countries to fulfill this call to action, which is key as the learning poverty has become even more pronounced in post pandemic Africa

According to the statement, “Case in point, our Nigerian delegation is attending this conference against a backdrop of 18 5million out of school children in Nigeria according to UNICEF, a negative growth of 76% from UNICEF’s 2021 estimate of 10 5million

The education situation is even more dire according to UNICEF education specialist Ahmed Sharouda because 70% of the children in school are not learning anything that will add value to them or the society creating a learning crisis in Nigeria

This statement was made by Sharouda in a presentation at a two-day media dialogue on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Child Rights, organized by the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture, in collaboration with UNICEF, in Kano, in April 2022.

““It states that these interventions must be implemented as part of a national learning recovery program that can also serve as a springboard for building more effective, equitable, and resilient education systems

Dr Benjamin Piper, Director of Global Education, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was quoted as saying “ we have solutions that can work at scale and in government systems

Committing to substantial learning recovery programs is a start, but the composition of those programs matter: measure learning outcomes, but also invest in improving instruction through structured pedagogy…”

“In Nigeria, based on these suggestions, there are bright glimmers of hope for effective scalable education transformation as seen in Lagos State’s EKOEXCEL, Edo State’s EdoBEST and Kwara’s KwaraLEARN, all with technical support from NewGlobe, Nigeria

“The Governments of Nigeria’s Lagos, Kwara and Edo States have all committed to driving up standards and outcomes across their entire education systems, with measured gains in literacy and numeracy in weeks Their programs are supported by data-driven technology solutions in partnership with NewGlobe, a social enterprise which supports national and state governments by creating powerful technology-enabled education systems

“The EKOEXCEL program in Lagos State covers half a million students and all pre-primary and public primary schools. A recent evaluation found that an average primary three EKOEXCEL pupil was now reading at nearly the same fluency level as an average primary five pupil before the launch of the program in 2020, despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

“The Edo Basic Education Sector Transformation (EdoBEST) in Edo State is another example of Nigerian education reform, which is being watched closely by other Government leaders ”

Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki said: “We used standard tests to examine fluency, literacy and numerical skills at every age The outcomes, which are independently measured, showed that the children in EdoBEST now are learning at about 70% of the rate of their counterparts in Europe and Asia That same review of the average situation in Nigerian schools measured them at about 30 percent. So while the average Nigerian is 30 percent, Edo State is at 70%.”

The statement said EdoBEST is supported by the World Bank, the only subnational education program in Africa to be part of the World Bank’s Accelerator Program.

World Bank Education Director Jaime Saavedra said “We believe that Edo State can set a great example for other states in Nigeria and even other countries. That is why Edo is part of the World Bank/UNICEF Accelerator Program ”

The statement added that the KwaraLEARN programme is the third statewide Nigerian education reform programme being showcased at the Education World Forum

Kwara State Governor, Abdulrahman AbdulRazaq said: “This is in the realization that getting education right from the foundation will support our achievements in infrastructural development, agriculture, technology, and social services, and open up new vistas of opportunities that will promote the common good ”

Continuing, the statement said: “All three programmes empower every teacher with digital tools to deliver expertly planned lessons based on the local national curriculum.

“The combination of structured pedagogy with the gathering of real-time data for accountability and feedback, is one recommended by the World Bank, as governments everywhere deal with the impact of the covid-19 pandemic, and the school closures which accompanied it, on children’s education

“This holistic learning methodology was the subject of a 2-year study led by 2019 Nobel Prize winning professor Michael Kremer

The Kremer Study finds that NewGlobe methods deliver unequivocal major learning gains across every academic year in NewGlobe-supported schools, compared with other schools.

These are particularly large in the “key grades” for Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN), primary classes One and Two Kremer and his co-authors found that students in early childhood years supported by NewGlobe received the equivalent of an additional year and a half of learning in two years.

““Programming supported by NewGlobe in Nigeria has previously been studied by Oxford University and the Department for International Development and revealed equity of learning It contradicts decades of global education research that asserts family background matters more than the school a child attends, in relation to levels of learning Education scholars estimate education reforms resulting in a 25-point gain on Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) (0 25 standard deviation) will increase the GDP growth rate by 0 5% annually in middle-income countries Lagos, Edo and Kwara can expect the same outcome Hopefully the whole of Nigeria can too, if this is also implemented at Federal level ”