By Okey Ikechukwu
A few weeks ago, the government of Akwa Ibom State announced a comprehensive education reform programme. It is designed and tagged, an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered basic education reform programme. Part of the objective is to recreate and deepen foundational literacy and numeracy in public primary schools. This sweeping ₦5.9 billion initiative is structured surefootedly in partnership with the global education organization EIDU to introduce data-driven teaching models.
As for the core Components of the Reform, we are looking at AI Teaching Guides, in the form of AI-enabled tools for the delivery of structured daily lesson plans to teachers. Personalized learning is also on the cards, wherein pupils receive interactive activities tailored to their specific progress. This is in addition to Real-Time Analytics, by means of which educators and managers use digital platforms to track performance and identify learning gaps.
The other very significant component in this remarkable package is an elaborate infrastructure overhaul template that incorporates comprehensive renovations across primary and junior secondary schools. And it on top of all these that the state education reform initiative has put a teacher recruitment drive, to ensure that additional qualified teachers are brought in to support the updated curriculum.
In sum, this Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered basic education reform programme has the ultimate objective of strengthening teaching quality and improving foundational literacy and numeracy in public primary schools across the state. It aligns completely with the state’s ARISE Agenda development framework and will leverage technology to support teachers in delivering structured lessons while providing pupils with personalized learning experiences tailored to their academic progress.
The programme is being implemented by EIDU in partnership with the Akwa Ibom State Ministry of Education, introducing a data-driven and AI-enabled instructional model in classrooms. The deployment of digital learning tools will give teachers, school leaders and education managers access to real-time data to monitor pupils’ performance and identify learning gaps at an early stage. For the record, EIDU currently partners with governments in four countries to improve foundational learning outcomes using its AI-enabled teaching model, which has reached more than 790,000 children in underserved communities.
In contrast to the foregoing, the “education reform initiative” of the federal government, under former President Muhammadu Buhari. In his very last Federal Executive Council meeting, that government announced the decision to spend the sum of 4.7 billion on the construction of seven Models Schools in the six geo-political zones of the country and Abuja.
In an article titled “Objection Mr. President “, which appeared on this page three weeks after Buhari dissolved that cabinet, I said: “The federal government can choose one Unity School from each of the geo-political zones and upgrade it to a Model School, or school of reference of some sort, instead of starting fresh school projects. A simple cost-benefit analysis shows that 4.7 billion Naira will go a very long way in rescuing the 104 now decrepit and derelict Unity Schools in the country and increasing their carrying capacity. The old students’ associations and the parents of the current students who are now maintaining and sustaining these schools in the critical areas of infrastructure and learning environment should be relieved of a burden that a distant Federal Ministry of Education, a consummate cabal with impressive credentials that no minister of education can easily see through of dislodge, claims to be handling but is not”.
Governor Eno is strengthening and deepening what already exists. While the Buhari government set out to build new model schools by awarding contracts and waiting for years, as we are waiting now, Akwa Ibom is doing what makes sense in a twenty-first-century world. As I said then, “The seven Model Schools will not make any impact whatsoever on human capital development, or contribute to the growth of education, one way or another in Nigeria in the next five years. But upgrading some Unity School will do just that within the same timeframe. So the proposed new schools will be nothing but a major capital project, resting on the mistaken assumption that the provision of learning infrastructure is the same thing as sustainable investment in education”.
I have often likened the school system to a “factory” producing human capital for the nation. It needs “factory workers”, as well as facilities and the physical infrastructure housing all activities. Investment that focuses on factory machinery and the premises of our education industry is not the best approach to improving the quality of citizens (or “products”) we turn out. It is not enough for an investor to procure and install fine “machinery.” The equipment will not translate to high-quality products, or even any products at all, unless there are also competent people to handle them.
A man who builds a bakery to the best global standards, complete with a service and marketing template that even the Jews would envy, but who fails to train bakers and install an efficient and effective management has invested in folly. He will have impressive installed capacity, but pitiable capacity utilization. Incompetent staff will quickly destroy the unfamiliar equipment and ruin everything.
Eno has brought out a point I never cease to make at every opportunity, and which I also made in the aforementioned article. There is a difference between “investment in physical infrastructure for education” and learning environment and investment in teacher education/knowledge upgrade, up-scaling of learning outcomes and other measures that would impact the quality of products of our schools. The expenditure of most states of the federation on education over the years shows huge budgetary allocations to education, at the same time that we also saw a precipitous decline in educational standards and learning outcomes.
Some states with very high records of expenditure for classroom rehabilitation, the supply of desks, books, etc., also have the worst teacher training, school enrolment and retention records. Check the investment of the federal and state governments on the training of teachers, provision of teaching aids and more in the last 20 years. So, let us pull the blinkers off our eyes and get real.
Let us recall that the introduction of the 3-3-3-6 secondary school template was predicated on the expectation that the products of our secondary schools would be eligible for some form of employment, based on a “technical” education of sorts. Introductory Technology (Intro-tech) came on board as a subject in our secondary schools because of this. Impressive machinery and other infrastructure for teaching the subject were also quickly imported (procurement contract). Some of the “Jakande Schools” in Lagos with their low walls had to build new halls for safe storage of the equipment.
But there were practically no teachers for the new subject anywhere. So while we cheerfully planned for a revolutionary national human capital development outing and procured the equipment for it, while we celebrated the expected outcomes a very sound education policy, many schools could not even install the equipment, to say nothing of using them. The equipment procured and given to schools all over Nigeria for that revolution is nowhere to be found today. The products of that revolution are also nowhere to be found today. Worse still, there is no impact on national development, technological evolution and unemployment.
It is against the background of the foregoing that Governor Eno stands out in my view. It was also for the same reasons that I wrote the article “Objection Mr. President” to the proposed Model Schools without any mention of producing Model Teachers as marching Components. But the Akwa Ibom education game plan is also talking about an increase in the number and quality of teachers, the expansion of the carrying capacity of the existing schools, and the provision of the necessary contemporary teaching aids for the students, teachers and benefiting communities.
Further still on the matter of wrong prioritization in education, this page also drew attention to a wrongheaded initiative of Kebbi State, some five years ago. Under the title “Kebbi State, for Instance “, raised issues about the decision of the Kebbi State to spend the sum of ₦4.5billion on the construction and renovations of schools and the building of new schools in every local government of the state.
The first bad news, I said then, was that “some local councils visited lacked adequate female teachers, infrastructure, as well as low enrolment of girls”. This is in addition to the fact that some parents refuse to register their children in school. Reason? “Unconducive learning environment, insecurity, inadequate teachers and lack of teaching aids and materials.”
Further still on the bad news, the state government (and most other state governments in the country) may wish to answer the following questions: (1) Is there a difference between expenditure on education infrastructure and actual investment in education and human capital development? (2) How many candidates enrolled for SSCE and related examinations in the last 10 years, and why? (3) Are your secondary teachers so versed in their respective teaching subjects that what they need now is “methodologies to impact more knowledge on students” (4) Can you say in all good conscience, that less than seventy per cent of your state’s education budget of the last 20 years have not been more of procurement contracts? And (5) Has there been an improvement in enrolment, retention and education outcomes?
All states of the federation should look at what is going on in Akwa Ibom. Our people say that only a fool will not relent in the fruitless endeavor of trying to catch a slippery snake with a soapy hand.
Governor Eno’s initiative is making this point: “Education is about knowledge, not the infrastructure for learning”.