• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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NewGlobe showcases innovation to drive learning outcome

NewGlobe showcases innovation to drive learning outcome

NewGlobe, a renowned e-learning solution provider, has showcased its mission and impacts in Nigeria at the 14th Total School Support Seminar/Exhibition (TOSSE).

Themed’ Building a sustainable education ecosystem in Africa’, the 2022 TOSSE was held recently in Lagos, to transform Nigeria’s education sector through seminars, mentorship and showcasing edu-innovations as it provides players a platform to discuss the challenges, solutions and prospects of a better education system.

NewGlobe, an ed-tech platform that supports visionary governments by creating robust technology-enabled education systems, was among the participants at this year’s event, which featured guests worldwide.

Speaking at one of the sessions, Lanre Dairo, regional director of communications, NewGlobe, reiterated the importance of quality education and how it can help solve society’s problems.

Dairo, whose organisation is the technical partner to strategic transformational interventions, including EKOEXCEL in Lagos, EdoBEST (Edo Basic Education Sector Transformation) in Edo State and KwaraLEARN in Kwara State, also stressed the importance of collaboration among players in the sector.

He noted that “players in the education sector should collaborate more. Collaboration is vital. We should not see ourselves as competitors but one unit driving the growth of our sector and country.”

Highlighting the edutech platform’s methodology, Dairo disclosed that the company invests significantly in classroom management to improve learning outcomes.

He said, “New Globe continuously studies the science of learning, pedagogy. It’s a continuous process for us. We have special schools where we observe how learning is going on. And we ask ourselves two questions, how can we improve learning outcomes and make it more cost-effective for the users without diluting the impact?” he asked.

“Even in private schools, we should have a continuous iterative development goal in our classroom. We should continuously observe what works.”

Read also: Experts advocate entrepreneurial education to boost economy

Dairo also clarified why NewGlobe is not working with private schools yet, saying,” we work at scale. In Lagos, we work with 1,011 schools and over 400,000 pupils. Unfortunately, there’s no private school that has that kind of scale.”

“We provide quality education at a low cost; to do that, we need that scale. Unfortunately, the private sector in Nigeria doesn’t offer that kind of scale. Still, we are exploring working with associations and advocacy groups.”

Earlier, the Lagos State Commissioner for Education, Folasade Adefisayo, stressed the importance of expanding education and increasing access to underprivileged people.

She said, “In Lagos, we acknowledge the need to expand education to reach both rich and poor. We recognise the contribution of private schools in this area. In Lagos, we have more private schools than public schools. It is in the ratio of 22 to one. We need to work together. The government is responsible for providing education, but we must partner to increase access.”

Yinka Ogunde, CEO of Edumark Consulting – the organisers of the event also asked educators to innovate and be creative.

“Every educator must remain creative because things are changing minute by minute in the education sector. The mindset must change for us to see and understand that the future is no longer exactly how we perceive it today. As such, all stakeholders in the education space must be ready to key in and embrace change,” she said.

Apart from Nigerian participants, the seminar/exhibition also featured guests from Tanzania, the United States, Spain and Finland, including leading firms from Finland. Finns, Axel Sointu and Patrik Bredbacka, presented a paper entitled ‘Co-creating a sustainable education model: The Finnish experience’ during the School Business Clinic. The country’s education Ambassador, Marjaana Sall, also attended the exhibition.

Founded in 2007, New Globe opened its first station in Kenya in 2009 and expanded to Nigeria in 2015. It methodology was recently appraised by 2019 Nobel Prize-winning economist, Professor Michael Kremer.

The impact of this methodology which underpins the public basic education systems of Edo, Lagos and recently Kwara State’s is among the greatest of any rigorously studied intervention in Africa / emerging markets.

The study finds that If replicated at scale across public education systems, the gains would be enough to put African children from underserved communities on track to match their peers in countries with incomes three or four times higher.

The highly anticipated study found that children living in underserved African communities receive 53percent more learning in schools supported by Nigerian State governments’ partner NewGlobe, throughout their early childhood and primary schooling, through Grade 8; under the NewGlobe integrated methodology, learning in two years what their peers learn in nearly three.

For Early Childhood Development (ECD) – typically 3 and 5 year olds – children the gains were even bigger. The children supported by NewGlobe gained almost an additional year and half of learning (1.48), learning in two years what students in other schools learn in three and a half years. It featured leading players in education, technology and business.