The Plateau State government has distributed digital skills equipment to 80 senior secondary schools across the 17 local government areas under subcomponent 2.2A: Digital literacy and remote learning platforms.
While presenting the equipment to principals of the benefiting schools in Jos, the state commissioner for education, Mrs Elizabeth Wapmuk, said each school would have a complete equipment of solar panels, inverters, tuber batteries and charge control.
Other equipment include 20 laptops and internet connectivity as well as projectors, motorised projectors/screen, ‘digital safe’ to protect the laptops. She said the equipment would reduce the digital infrastructure gap among students in the state.
The commissioner said the use of computers and digital technology is a requirement for future empowerment of the population, noting that without digital literacy, youths would be at a major disadvantage both economically and educationally.
“If we fail to provide them education for employment, the size of the unemployment problem will dwarf the current situation and bring tremendous hardship with it. Technological improvements in education have made life easier for students. Instead of using pen and paper, students nowadays use various software and tools to create presentations and projects,” she stated.
The commissioner said the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) is an intervention programme from the World Bank with the aim of developing the capacity of the girl-child and boys with requisite skills to advance to adulthood as they traverse the learning cycle.