We need to make education curriculum AI-driven, says Chrisland director

Ayoola Akinyeye, a director at Chrisland Schools, says Nigeria needs to develop a curriculum that integrates artificial intelligence (AI) and technology into its core teachings.

Speaking with journalists on Thursday in Lagos, Akinyeye highlighted the necessity of a curriculum that places AI and tech at its core, rather than merely using these tools as supplementary aids.

She added that Nigeria needs to take lessons from countries with top educational innovation like China, Finland, and the United Arab Emirates on how they pivoted their educational systems using AI and tech, setting a benchmark for others to follow.

“The Nigerian curriculum is derived from the British curriculum. I think it’s one of those things that has come to stay in the Nigerian educational space. There are a lot of schools doing the Nigerian and British curriculum, so it’s no longer worth it to have it. Like you rightly said, how do we do ours? We’ve looked at our curriculum again, and we’ve found the challenges and the strengths,” Akinyeye said.

“One of the things we’re doing is that we’re trying to make sure that we take the best in each of these. In primary school, we are adopting the British curriculum in English because it has a stronger scheme of work than the Nigerian curriculum. But we’re contextualising the strategies, the methodology we are embracing fully. Their research is more advanced, their methodology is more advanced. But the stories we use, we contextualise them.

“The Nigerian math is quite rigorous. We’re keeping the math, but again, we’re borrowing the methodology to ensure that the depth is intact. So what the UK scheme lacks in rigour, they have in depth.

“That’s the fundamental difference. What Nigeria lacks in depth, we have in scope. So, the Nigerian scheme is quite wide, but it’s not that deep. What we’ve done is we’ve taken the depth of the British curriculum, and we’ve moved it into the breadth of the Nigerian curriculum. So, we’ve taken the topics in the Nigerian curriculum, but we are giving it the depth of the British curriculum.”

Akinyeye said the Chrisland Teachers Academy will be tasked with designing a bespoke curriculum, dubbed the “Chrisland Curriculum Plus”, adding that the curriculum will be AI-driven and tech-centric, marking a significant shift in the school’s educational methodology.

“We are setting up the Chrisland Teachers Academy. With the chain of 16 schools, it’s almost a no-brainer that we have a teacher’s academy. The Teachers Academy is going to have the sole responsibility of designing a curriculum that clearly has AI embedded,” she said.

“I’m not talking about simply doing a task and using AI; I’m talking about a curriculum that has AI/tech as the core. To do that, we need to learn lessons from China. We need to learn lessons from Finland. There’s a third research paper that I have on my system. We need to learn lessons from Dubai, whether you like it or not, and see how they have pivoted the educational system using AI and tech.

“So, it will be the job of the teacher training college to recraft our entire scheme of work to then bring out what I would call the Chrisland curriculum plus, which is then AI-driven and tech-driven.”