Skool Media, a Nigerian Edtech startup focused on retooling the country’s education system and providing a platform for the Nigerian child to compete globally, is set to launch U Create-Hub, a new innovative space where kids and teenagers are inspired to innovate, create and collaboratively learn coding, 3D printing, robotics, and artificial intelligence.
According to the company, the initiative is to ensure Nigerians are not just consumers of technology but also creators leveraging on the opportunity in the technology space such as the power of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM).
Launched in 2014, the ICT solution-based company restated its commitment to change the face of post-primary education in the country with the various efforts it has put in supporting the educational system.
So far, the startup has been instrumental in providing digital infrastructure as well as building several students and teachers technology hubs in Unity Colleges across the country. It aims at providing infrastructural support to a range of educational institutions including digitalization of classroom, library upgrade, upgrade of laboratory and teaching software, capacity building and creation of a common room.
“Our ultimate target is to provide the utmost professional and ethical standards in building a globally competitive educational system,” said Dr. Macjohn Onyekwere Nwaobiala, Chairman of the newly heralded Advisory board of Skool Media Nigeria Limited. In the last six years of existence, it has set up Students Technology Experience Centers, over 452 projectors and 2500 computers have been installed in 75 Unity schools across Nigeria.
According to him, the centers have helped students learn useful digital and soft skills to enable them to compete globally, of which some of the centers are being used as venues for Computer Based Tests (CBT) centers to prepare some of the students for JAMB examination.
With Skool Media engagement in these 75 schools, it has also introduced 377 digital classrooms where learning is made fun and easier with technology tools for both teachers and students. While the students are most engaged, the teachers, through its Teachers Digital Learning Centre are taught how to use several productive tools to improve the delivery of instructional content.
Speaking on the development, Mrs. Emeka Okolie, a teacher at the center said it has been extremely interesting working with tech for personal teaching improvement and setting up lessons with a laptop. “People who are not tech-savvy are also being taught how to go about it. We lack the knowledge, but we are all learning to use the computers and tech tolls here,” she said.
In 2018, the startup company developed a platform called Edufirst.ng, a digital learning platform that would address their engagement with private institutions and private schools.
It was supposed that the platform would address the gap in the educational space such as a school portal management system that allows good interactions, students-teachers interactions, parent-teachers interactions, as well as stakeholder interactions.
With these innovations, Skool Media is now poised to transform the face of education to a more advanced level in Nigeria using technology. Students would now be more engaged and employed as it is changing the landscape of educational space with the adoption of technology to improve and reposition the average Nigerian child for competitiveness in the global space.
By Ahmed Iyanda.
