Nigeria’s efforts towards encouraging virtual learning in the country has received a boost as secondary school teachers across the country won prizes at the Digital Teachers Competition organized by Skool Media Nigeria Limited.
Coordinated by Skool Media’s subsidiary, Edufirst.ng, the competition is part of the organization’s quest towards empowering teachers across Nigeria with digital skills.
For close to two weeks that the competition lasted, 215 teachers, from the Federal Unity Colleges across the six geopolitical zones, who have been parts of the e-learning initiative of the company submitted entries to participate.
Eighteen winners, three from each of the six geopolitical zones, emerged after the competition which began on May 1, and ended on May 19, 2020.
All the 18 winners will receive a certificate of participation, one edupad laptop each; and they will be given Microsoft Certified Educator training which gives them the key competence of 21st-century skills of global digital teachers.
This will also give them a good mastery of Microsoft for Education packages such as Teams for Education, One Note, and other applications to deliver quality lessons to learners.
Before their emergence, the teachers submitted video lessons of their subject area in PowerPoint format, with not more than 10 slides.
The presentations were uploaded on Edufirst channel YouTube, while users of the platform voted for their preferred presentations.
The Project Director and Chief Executive of Skool Media Nigeria Limited, Mr. Moses Imayi noted that Digital Teacher Competition was an opportunity to engage with teachers across the colleges in Nigeria, while tactically offering a give-back initiative to encourage teachers on the utilization of digital skills needed in the 21st-century school.
Imayi commended the Federal Ministry of Education for supporting virtual learning initiative in partnership with Skool Media Nigeria.
He also applauded the States Ministry of Education for various initiatives being embarked upon to ensure that Nigerian children do not suffer knowledge gap all through this period.
“Since early April 2020, Skool Media embarked on online learning initiative, through edufirst Youtube Channel, as a corporate shared value in response to the closure of school occasioned by the spread of coronavirus.
“For close to two months, over 20,000 students across Nigeria have been freely subscribing to the classes which hold from Monday to Friday.
“Till date, more than 400 video learning resources were submitted by volunteer teachers covering Mathematics, English Language, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Economics, Computer/ICT, Government, Basic Tech and Basic Sciences for both junior and senior secondary school categories.
“This is part of the Skool Media’s vision to be a world-class education technology infrastructure company focused on re-tooling the Nigerian education system and providing a platform for the Nigerian child to compete globally,” Imayi said.
