Tunji Eleso is director of Strategy and Business Advisory at Co-Creation (CC-HUB) Nigeria.
He holds a B.Sc, in Estate Management (Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife Nigeria), M.sc. Development Finance (University of Manchester, UK) also functions in Lead, Pre-Incubation and Research channel at the social innovation centre dedicated to accelerating the application of social capital and technology for academic prosperity.
Eleso has engaging in intelligent conversations with people as a hobby spoke to peter ugwu on the HUB’s newly developed application, Efiko – a Technology in Education (TiE) platform meant for secondary school students in Nigeria.

Philosophy of Technology in Education
We in Co-Creation Hub strongly believe in changing the landscape of education in this country. For us, the first step in doing that is to understand the real issues on why our education system is the way it is today.
That is why we adopted the programme called Technology in Education (TiE). The goal for us is to understand the real issues in the sector; and on December 10, 2011, we invited teachers, educationists, parents and students, to brainstorm on why we have the kind of failure rates in examinations in the country.
Thus, on ascertaining what the problems are, it was left for us to unveil processes that will help the nation address that. We adopted then TiE system. Actually, six issues were identified during the stakeholders’ meeting…

Gray Areas Identified
Some of the thematic areas are learning funds for kids, how to ensure the curriculum is updated and passed across in such a manner that students will have the enthusiasm to learn without persuasion or punishment attached.
 Another thematic area was: how can parents have clear understanding of what goes on in the school in order to fill up with their children?
You shouldn’t necessarily wait for the end of the term to know the performances of your children; information technology can actually help to fill the gap.
 And we thought about, how someone can make use of the powers of animation, voice and text to pass on learning to students, especially in an interactive manner that goes beyond what we typically have now; that is one person talking to all, and sometimes without feedback.
It is not just about teaching emanating from teachers to students and terminates there; rather students can engage in cross-learning process.
So, after the stakeholders’ meeting we put up a call for ideas from people who have mobile solutions on those areas in education. We had about 35 ideas submitted which were forwarded to a panel of competent judges.
They scrutinized the ideas and six of them were narrowed down to technology in education. Within 48 hours, we invited scholars, business communication gurus, the academia and the aim was to put their heads around the six ideas and produce prototypes in line with market strategies around that application.
It was during that process that Efiko emerged, which is a mobile social quizzing platform designed to enhance learning through self-assessment.
Together with the first and second runners up, they were given cash prizes to further developing the apps. We thought of how to help them develop the prototypes further; build a product that can fit-into the market. So, we have been doing that since February last year.

Period of Testing and Observations
Actually, it was amazing. We had 303 students, both male and female who participated on the pilot test. With the support of Education District 4 in Lagos, we went to eight schools, and one thing stood out: The students were really appreciative of the platform.
They saw it as a charitable opportunity to learn by using their mobile devices than other things they have been doing. They also appreciated the logic and flow of/in the application usage.
In fact, we got very encouraging and valid feedbacks from the students that the team has also gone back to the application to go and fix.
They are solving issues like having more contents-subjects, clear-cut instructions and directions while using the application. We also had mobile network challenge during the pilot scheme.
 Right now we are working on an offline version of the application. It wouldn’t require data to be able to partake on the platform.
Those were valuable information we got during the pilot and there are phenomenal.
Most of the Students Use Feature Phone, How adaptable is the Platform on Those Phones?
Yes, we built a cross-platform application. There is a Nokia version of the application, there is the Android version and a WAP version which is meant for any phone that has data plans.
The reason was that we recognized that children at that level usually do not have smart or high end phones. So, the application was developed in such a way that it can serve both low and high end phones.

Platform to Drive Nationwide Phase of the Project
Technologically, the team has developed a base that can take on whatever data that come in.
With the support of CC-Hub we have been able to extend the reach of the application using the backing of our partners and publishers to ensure we get the right coverage.

Engaging the Government to Becomes Part of the National Education Curriculum
We are engaging partners at different levels to get to that. Firstly, we are working with reputable partners, who have the mandate to produce contents tied to the curriculum.
We are also working with the government and we have to start somewhere.
So, with the level of success we recorded working with Education Development District 4, we are optimistic that it will receive a national boost.
They have also committed to support us with content development, thereby tying the contents directly to the curriculum. We have the support of teachers.
For instance, there has been a public perception that students should not be exposed to mobile phones. But that works in two ways. We sought and got feedbacks from teachers on what and how they want the application to work.
And the application was designed to be a supplementary tool. So, we are not saying that as a learning tool students should use it in school.
Yes, after the day’s teaching and learning, the student goes home to use the application to reinforce what he/she was thought in class. Therefore, the teachers saw the application and they really liked it. To us, it becomes a tool that is far reaching.
We recognize that teachers have big roles to play in the whole space of education, and we cannot necessarily develop a programme for students without factoring in the teachers. We should note that some students do not have the boldness to ask questions in the classroom but can freely discourse among their peers.
Such students can partake on this platform and get better understanding of what the lesion was all about. That makes it a priority to reorganize how students learn; bring in a better encoding and decoding platform. We are going to have student make better results after exams and become more knowledgeable about what they are thought.

Partners Excitement
We are at the middle of technological ecosystem. And in that process we need technological companies, creators, designers, academic, and government, among others to get there.
And we know that technological companies are in the center of promoting the use of technology to solve problems. So, organizations like Nokia, Samsung, are in the center of our ability to deliver on that dream.
And they have been very supportive.

Challenges Encountered During the Pilot Scheme
Generally, in Nigeria, we are not use to doing things based on empirical data. Even in this project, we saw that manifesting.
 People generalize while making statements like ‘most people’, ‘a good number of people’ et cetera. If we are going to develop this country, we need to do things with valid information (facts and figures).
 We need to build a fact base that can influence the way things are done. From the 303 students we were able to see which network works, which social media platform they use most.
Meanwhile, the challenges will always exist, especially when you want people to change their attitude of doing things. But we are exploiting so many ways to get people informed more about this.
Rather than say, ‘oh! Most people’, ‘generally’ and terms like that we can be more specific and to generate the data involves using any platform that is visible and applicable.
Educationist, technologists, governments, name it, every sector needs information with which to change the system. For us, it is a long journey, but we must begin somewhere.