The former Governor of Anambra State, Mr Peter Obi, says investment in digital education and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are critical for Nigeria needed development.
Obi stated this during the Peaceland University, Enugu Maiden Hybrid International Conference with the theme, “Digitalisation in Education:Staying Ahead Of The Curve”. on Wednesday in Enugu.
The former Labour Party presidential candidate in 2023 General Election, who is the Guest Honour at the event, said the country needed to invest in technology and AI to improve the education system that would make youths productive after graduation.
He disclosed that the only measure of development universally acceptable today was human development index, adding that the only measure of human development index was life expectancy, education and per capital income.
“This means that education is the most contributor to national development and we need to support it as well as embracing digitalisation of education for future which is in technology and AI.
“Youths are the engine of any nation and if we invest in them, we are investing in a great nation because they are productive tools on any nation,” Obi said.
He decried that governments were not giving priority attention to education of its youths.
“The entire university population is below 2.5 million with over 200 million people which is too low for the size of the country, when we have country like Bangladesh with about 155 mllion population with one university with 2.1 million students.
“India’s National Open University has about 7 million students. So we need to do more to advance our educational system,” he added.
On agriculture, Obi said that Nigeria could not feed itself as the country with over 60 per cent of its land uncultivated.
According to him, Sambisa forest is a farmland which has 66,000 square kilometers that is three times size of Israel with 22,000 square kilometers that feed itself and export.
“What we have here is forest that is giving us trouble,” Obi said.
Addressing newsmen, the Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof. Leo Ilechukwu, said the conference was apt stressing that we could not talk about education without technology.
He described education as the “highest asset” that could not be accessed without tech and digitalisation.
The vice chancellor however, called for government funding of schools and ensure they had access to technology.
The Pro Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof. Felix Igwuozo, explained that the university believed that the conference would bring new ideas, bring collaboration and led to future initiatives that would enhance education in Nigeria
Prof. John Undie, the Lead Speaker I, noted that digitalisation would make people work without seeing each other, reduce paper work and improve collaboration.
He listed its challenges to include internet failure, skill to operate them, constant power outage that affected broad band and internet connectivity which he said that caused divide between Nigeria and developed countries. (NAN)
