By Laide Akinboade-Oriere

WORRIED   about the  struggling in Nigeria with the use of technology to teach in the universities,    the Executive Secretary of National Universities Commission, NUC, Professor Julius Okojie, has challenged stakeholders in education sector to ensure they build capacity for training trainers in the area of virtual learning.

Okojie stated this while declaring open a two-day Capacity Building Workshop for the Production of D igital Multimedia Learning Content for academic staff of Distance Learning Centres and NOUN, organised by NUC in Abuja.  He said it is imperative for nations to prepare their youths for the future through the use of technology.

According to the Executive Secretary of NUC, “We want many students to benefit from virtual learning. We cannot prepare the future for our children but we can prepare our children for the future. So let us be prepared to teach our children for the future.

“We must build capacity by training and retraining. The fact that many people want to use this facility in our university system, so the people that would be trained at this workshop should be able to train other people. We are going to train the trainers and they should go back to build capacity.”

Prof Folahan Ayorinde, a Professor of Chemistry, said; “The workshop is aimed at providing some academics in Nigeria with the skills to deliver lectures online and give presentations online. This lectures can be  given to students without the use of the internet, through virtual means.

“The benefit of teaching students virtually means you are able to teach more students. It gives students access to more materials and you are able to use multimedia. If a student is not able to attend the lecture, he would have access to materials,” he said .

Dr Suleiman Ramon, from NUC, said for Nigeria to be able to meet demand for access, there was need to embrace the use of technology to teach in our universities.

“It is very clear that Nigeria has been struggling with use of technology to teach in our universities. Nigeria won’t be able to meet the demands for education if we continue to use the conventional method in our classrooms. It is a way to reach more people in leaning,” he said .

Dr Abdullahi Liman Tukur from  Moddibo University of Technology ,  Yola, a participant, said the training is apt considering the peculiar environment he came from (North East).

He stated, “This workshop is relevant to Open, Distance Learning, ODL, giving a peculiar nature of our environment because we are from North East. The ODL is becoming key to us. We can develop our materials and upload them, especially at this particular time when most of our institutions are closed.