The Executive Secretary, Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Arc. Sonny Echono, has once more, reiterated the need for an education system that is redefined in both content and teaching methods.
 
According to him, it was high time the nation’s higher institutions shifted from transmission to transformation.
  
The TETFund boss, who spoke in his capacity as the Guest Lecturer early in the week at an event to mark the 26th Convocation Ceremony of the Lagos State University (LASU), tasked tertiary institutions in the country on digitisation of teaching process to meet the demands of the time.
 
Delivering a lecture tagged, ‘Higher Education the Digital Age’, Echono stated that the evolution of digitisation bridges learning gaps as well as provide hybrid forms of learning and access to knowledge in the society. He disclosed that TETFund was playing a critical role in the evolution of such hybrid learning process through digitisation and Information and Communication Technology-driven initiatives.
  
As gatekeepers and stakeholders in tertiary education, he charged heads of higher institutions to begin to device new pathways that are digital literacy oriented.
  
He said: “It is therefore imperative, as gatekeepers and avant-garde of tertiary education, to think differently about educational leadership and to design a new pathway using digital literacy as a foundation.
  
“We must also engender new perspectives and practices by employing emerging models of curriculum delivery.  At no time in our history has there been a louder call for our education to be more relevant and transformative.”
  
The Executive Secretary further informed that challenges currently confronting higher educational institutions in the country are not different from those faced by other institutions of higher learning in some nations of the world.
 
Echono, who has been an advocate of reforms and enhancement of teaching and learning processes in the nation’s tertiary education sector, noted that the method of teaching and learning which are now outdated and retrogressive must be redefined to make giant strides in the world where Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and modern technology determine the pace of technological advancement.
  
He further admonished that to remain afloat in the current innovation-driven economy, where technology increasingly dominates virtually every aspect of life and work, students who graduate from the country’s tertiary institutions would require a different blend of skills as compared to what is obtainable currently. According to him, such steps remain the only path to making headway in life.
 
He maintained that as a nation, Nigeria must engender new perspectives and practices by employing emerging models of curriculum delivery, noting that the clamour to make the nation’s education relevant and transformative has been louder currently than ever before.
  
In his remarks, the Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Abubakar Rasheed, commended the Vice Chancellor, Lagos State University (LASU), Prof. Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello, for making the institution one of the most sought-after citadels of learning in the country.
 
For Rasheed, that the school teaches 70 out of the total of 71 accredited courses by NUC was not a mean feat. According to the NUC boss, LASU’s ICT implementation in learning has equally earned the institution over 90 per cent record in the NUC chart of higher institutions in Nigeria.
  
He added that NUC has concluded the review of over a thousand courses to be adapted into the curriculum with 70 per cent of the courses in line with the NUC’s framework and 30 per cent of them aligning with the higher institution course framework.
  
Speaking, the Vice Chancellor of LASU, Prof. Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello, expressed delight at the presence of both NUC Executive Secretary and the Guest Lecturer and TETFund boss, Echono.
  
The Vice Chancellor said she considered it a great honour to have Echono engaged in thought-provoking discourse on digitisation in higher education as well as the initiatives that would spur revolution in the country’s tertiary institutions.
  
The VC had at an earlier event highlighted some of the school’s academic achievements.
  
She said: “The university was ranked the best State University in Nigeria by the AD Scientific Index in 2022 and also secured 96 per cent full accreditation in the 2022 NUC’s accreditation exercise. This is a fulfillment of the first strategic goal of this administration, which is to ensure that all academic and professional programmes are and remain accredited by the relevant bodies.
  
“We also secured accreditation for professional programmes being offered in the university from relevant accreditation bodies. Of note is the re-accreditation of our Accounting programme by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN).”