By Ebele Orakpo

Employing technological tools in the education sector will make learning easier and more interesting. This was what Engineer Andrew Desmen Idowu, chairman of Andrew D. Idowu & Co. had in mind when the company decided to make a foray into the education sector.

According to Idowu in a chat with Vanguard Learning, “We want to introduce technology into our secondary school education sector, and even primary school. We are bringing in android tablets and selling them at ridiculously low prices to students.

“These android tablets usually go for about N40,000 – N50,000 in the market and our own brand compares with some of the telecommunication companies’ android tablets. So we want to give it to the students so that they will be able to run their physics, chemistry, biology, ICT and mathematics practicals virtually.”

He noted that people tend to remember what they hear, but remember more what they see while they tend to forget what they read. “But with this technology, they will not only hear, they will see and seeing is believing. If they see the heart moving for instance, when they want to draw the heart, they will remember what the heart looks like and they will be able to draw it unlike when they see it in textbooks. They will run their practicals as if they are physically present in the laboratory so when they eventually get to the laboratory, it will be very easy for them.”

Idowu stated that the  students will be able to run their practicals anywhere – “at home, in buses, even those who are hawking can always sit down in one corner and flip through.”

He said apart from the  obvious advantages to the students, publishers will also benefit as they will be able to sell more books than they are doing presently.

“From the android tablet we want to introduce, students  will be able to have books to buy at N20.00/N30.00 per chapter instead of paying N500 for a whole book that they are not going to read more than 10 – 15 chapters till the end of the session.

They will buy these books and at the end of the day, they may not be paying more than N300 – N400 per book, and many of the publishers who have their books on our virtual library, will be able to sell more than they are selling in the bookshops because they don’t have overhead costs. All they need to do is just give us the books and as the students buy, the money goes straight into their accounts because it is going to be through bank interswitch.

So we are trying to see how publishers and teachers can throw things in the air. Our server is going to be cloud-based so that instead of us having a server in our office, we do not need it so the students do not need to route through our server in the office before they go to the web site, they just go straight,” he enthused.

Already, the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools in the South-West has adopted the technology which was launched in Ibadan on October 12, said Idowu.