TETFund to deploy US digital learning platform in 253 public tertiary institutions

The federal government says it is deploying blackboard, a digital learning platform, in tertiary institutions to fast-track educational development in Nigeria.

Tahir Mamman, the minister for education, spoke in Abuja on Thursday while receiving a delegation of Anthology, a merger of four of the world’s leading education technology companies, from the US.

Mamman said blackboard would create easy access to online academic resources and address the dearth of credible learning materials.

The minister said he would work to provide the policy framework that would facilitate the progress of the blackboard in the country.

“We are at the beginning of major reform in the education sector from the basic levels to tertiary levels,” the minister said.

Sonny Echono, the executive secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), who led the Anthology executives to the minister, said blackboard would see to the establishment of a centre that would be a benchmark for e-learning methodologies.

Echono said it would also help the country to be at the forefront of learning management systems so that the e-learning challenges Nigeria faced during the COVID-19 pandemic would not resurface.

He said the blackboard would enrol about 2.2 million student users in Nigeria across the 253 beneficiary institutions of the fund.

Echono revealed that plans are also underway to enrol other private institutions on the platform, noting that the move would increase the target to three million students.

“It is a platform that handles everything, even from the management of the institutions to the process of seeking admission-when you get enrolled to how you finish,” he added.

“Blackboard is able to provide content for all the institutions and the real-time engagement that the institutional ecosystem operates.

“It also gives us the opportunity to be able to benchmark what is happening in other institutions around the globe that are all using the same platforms.”

Joe Belenardo, the president of Anthology, said the blackboard had been tested to provide solutions to students and directors of information communication technology (ICT) around the world through skills.

Belenardo explained that blackboard, as a learning management system, currently has about 6,000 clients and 150 million students globally.

He said the technology is designed to create additional solutions/innovations, access to networks, and give business development opportunities for learners.