About 77 public schools in Osun shut down their Information and Communication Technology (ICT) centers because their teachers lacked the necessary qualifications to run them.
This was revealed by Hon. Oladoyin Folorunsho, the State Commissioner for Education, at a Ministerial press briefing held at the Minister of Information and Civic Orientation.
He revealed that some of the services have remained dormant since 2010, due to a lack of ICT understanding among teachers and a lack of awareness among pupils about their utility.
According to him, the state lacked an ICT policy for education before integrating technology into schools, and as a result, the system is ineffective.
“There was no ICT Policy on education in Osun State, Opon Imon was just brought in, teachers did not know what to do with it, students did not know the extent of its usefulness. Beyond Opon Imon, we have digital boards and others.
“Principals in public schools locked ICT equipment in 77 schools from 2010 to 2014. Some schools have 200 laptops, 300 tablets with Generators and ICT buildings. But because they don’t know what to do with them, they only use the generator in the principal office. Some schools were given 2 million gigabytes of internet acces, it expired because they did not know what to do with them.
“No less than 20 schools in Osun were given 2 million gigabytes each, but because there was no ICT policy on education in place, it all wasted. We are working on ICT policy.
“We have not jettison Opon Imon we have only rested it for a while pending the time we will have well structured ICT Policy on education. We will reintroduced Opon Imon and other ICT equipment. We will redefine Opon Imon by making it a digital, audio, video teaching equipment and it will not require the internet to function”, he said.
As part of the state government’s endeavor to ensure sanity in the education sector, he noted, over 600 mushroom schools had been closed across the state.
“We have declared a war on mushroom schools. We have zero tolerance for quacks in the system and schools that do not meet standards. We know the danger of mushroom schools, because once anyone damages the education foundation of a child, it becomes difficult to build a solid structure on it.
“Starting from the ministry, we have reviewed our department of schools to ensure greater efficiency. We have segmented the department to supervise basic and post-basic schools.
“Anyone who wants to start a school must produce a TRCN Certificate, among other requirements. We no longer grant licenses just because someone has spare funds to spend”, he said
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Source: The Vanguard