By Soni Daniel

 The Universal Basic Education Commission has promised to work with education technology companies to actualise its mandate of providing unrestricted access to high-quality digital basic education content and tools in Nigerian schools.

The Executive Secretary of UBEC, Dr Hamid Bobboyi, made the pledge while declaring open an Edtech Festival held at the UBEC Digital Resource Centre, Abuja.

Dr. Bobboyi who, was represented by the National Coordinator of the UBEC Digital Resource Centre, Prof Bashir Galadanci, noted that the Festival which was organised by UBEC in collaboration with the Co-Creation Hub (CC) was aimed at showcasing innovative educational technology (EdTech) solutions designed to address fundamental challenges in the education system, particularly in underserved areas.

The festival which, brought together prominent Edtech satartup companies including eLimu, Schoola, Wifi Combat, Gradely, MagicLab and EduTams availed the founders of these companies the opportunity to share their startup stories and entrepreneurial journeys, particularly on how they built profitable businesses while addressing specific educational challenges.

In her remarks at the event, Mrs. Chinyelu Akpa, the Education Practice Lead at  CCHub, highlighted the current state of EdTech in the country and introduced the Viable Community initiative, which she explained is targeted at supporting emerging EdTech startups.

The EdTech Festival featured workshops, exhibitions, and interactive sessions tailored towards educators, developers, government officials, and learners to improve the learning experience at the basic education level. Furthermore, feasible strategies that will foster collaboration within the government education subsector and the private EdTech sector to ensure sustainability while balancing innovation with profitability were also discussed in detail.

The two-day Festival was themed “Building Ed-Tech for Learning and Profit and Experiencing the Future of Learning.”