Professor Kate Azuka Omenugha, commissioner for Education, Anambra State, has disclosed how leveraging Microsoft Academy and other resources, helped in accelerating education digitalization and teachers’ training in the State.

Prof. Omenugha before her appointment was the director of UniZik 94.1 FM, an award winning Campus Community Radio of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka and spoke to Nigeria CommunicationsWeek at the inaugural BETT (Education) Middle East Forum sponsored by Microsoft.

The Commissioner who expressed delight on the resourcefulness of the Forum, disclosed that over thirty (30%) percent of the State was among the 42 cities across the globe that benefited from Microsoft educational transformation programmes.

She said, “I am really excited to be at BETT 2016 powered by Microsoft for Education leaders in Middle East and Africa. To me, it provides opportunity to listen to others on what they have done with education technologies and share ideas, taking away some pertinent issues, but again, confronted with so many challenges.

“When you attend Forums like this listening or witnessing what the internet, technology and general ICTs contribution to education, you feel so inadequate coming from background like Africa where technology is so much in advanced stages; where we are confronted with the realities of inadequate power supply, delayed access to internet connectivity, ‘analogue’ teachers and teaching methods, power infrastructural development/devices. Will the world wait for us? The answer has always been No! It keeps me on my toes when I begin to think in line with my State Governor, Chief (Dr) Willie Obiano, wants us to do in education. We have promised “umu-akwukwo ndi Anambra” (Anambra students) that we are going to give them education that is globally competitive. And that competiveness also has to do with access to technology, and being able to compete with children worldwide in terms of technology.

“Let me quickly say that, aside technology, Anambra State is giving our children global competitiveness through debates and public speaking. We pride ourselves that in our State is rated number one in Nigeria. In January this year we represented the country in Singapore. We beat the Singaporean team, emerging the world best. Come July’16, we are representing Nigeria in Germany in a global school debate.

On equipping teachers’ for today’s educational requirements, the Commissioner said, “Coming back to ICT and looking at the curriculum in Nigeria, you need to start ICT teaching and learning, from the primary school. We have put things in place to make that happen. We started one-teacher-one-laptop policy, because we needed to demystify the computer for the teachers. Some are apathetic to computer; most of them are female, married and not natives to digital migration. It is almost difficult for them to use those computers. So the first thing was to demystify the new teaching tool for them. The past administration keyed into the Microsoft Academy which Anambra State is one of the 42 places across the globe where the Academy is being used. What does that mean to us? We have access to training facilities and certification of our teachers.

“By the time, Chief Obiano came in the platform wasn’t adequately used; so, we had to re-strategize, and embarked on aggressive kind of campaign. Truly, the last administration had acquired Microsoft infrastructure in the tune of $1million and we had to aggressively pursue the implementation. About 35% of our teachers have Microsoft certification and in collaboration with the Microsoft office in Nigeria, we started the aggressive teaching to demystify computer for them.

She said that they are also creating relevant contents: “What we have done actually is leveraging the knowledge of the State’s ICT teachers. About 257 public secondary schools in the State almost have ICT teachers. Therefore, we divided the teachers into zones to do the basics. It was as a result of that most of them became pushy and got the certification. We started from the basics: Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc., even how to booth the computer!

“The first time, you could see people shouting, laughing and limping in joy, just because they could power the computer. It was that bad! I had to follow up with campaign for moral boosting; I was talking to teachers, telling them, ‘yes, we can do it’, ‘nothing is impossible’, ‘I do not accept failures’. It was like mobilizing the teachers to pick up the challenge. And they imbibed the trend. Now, constant training and re-training have become part of our calendar.

“As soon as the one-teacher-one-laptop policy comes into effect (because we are yet to take delivery of the laptops to give to teachers on soft loans), and in partnership with Microsoft we can move further in developing local contents. Because those of them who are certified can now develop local contents. At the BETT Forum I met with Microsoft officials and learnt there are software they are willing to give us for free to be able to develop the local contents”.

Tackling Connectivity/Bandwidth Challenges
Omenugha acknowledged that bandwidth or connectivity poses a major challenge to digitalizing education in the country.

To this end, she said, “We started the connectivity with the Galaxy Backbone, but I must say they haven’t done very well, because our bandwidth is very small compared to the number of schools that use that. The connectivity is usually limited, sometimes the downtime takes toll on us. But the good thing and from what I learnt from the Forum, Microsoft is coming with devices that not having internet access should not become the major challenge to what we are going to do.

To overcome the overriding impact of political (policy) instability, she said that Governance in Anambra State is based on Government of Continuity hence the programmes shall not be abandoned.

“After the eight (8) years of His Excellency, another administration will come in to continue from where we stopped. What we are doing now in education is what I call government of ‘commencement, continuity, completion, and commissioning’. So, we are on continuity, completion and commissioning phase. That is why we don’t find it difficult to do what we have set out to achieve, especially as the same APGA government continues mount the saddle of Governance in the State. The vision is there to make Anambra students remain globally competitive”.

The Commissioner disclosed that the process was deliberately organized to benefit rural dwellers in the State.

“There is always something of disparity when programmes like this emerge, but to close the gap, we had to divide the programme for zones. The rural dwellers are covered under the zones. They are also beneficiaries from the computers programme. It is how much of creativity and resourcefulness that heads of these schools have that will actually show how far they can drive this process. That is why we have made computer literacy one of the criteria for gaining appointment as a teacher in the State,” she said.

The Commissioner pledged the Anambra State’s resolve to alleviate sufferings of teachers & students alike.

“We will not relent on giving our students education that is globally relevant using our trained and motivated teachers. What that means is that we will ensure our schools meet global standards of access and use of ICT. And the tertiary institutions like Anambra State University where I come you must have a pass in computer before graduating. We are closing in on using computer based tests for our students from SS2, preparing them for JAMB and WAEC examinations,” the Commissioner added.