Gom Mirian
The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has announced the deployment of the highly acclaimed Blackboard Learning Platform to provide massive access to online academic resources.
This groundbreaking move towards enhancing the academic experience of over two million students and staff in higher education institutions across the counntry was revealed at a three-day workshop on ‘The Implementation of the Enhanced Blackboard Learning Management System and Train The Trainer Programme’ in Abuja.
Executive Secretary, TETFund, Arc. Sonny Echono, explained that when the blackboard enhancements become fully operational, it would also bridge the digital skills gaps in Nigerian universities, polytechnics and colleges.
He added that learners will be able to “access general resources to support learning including online tests and quizzes, submit assignments and electronic grade books which allow immediate review of grades and performance tracking.
“Carry out self and peer-assessment and collaboration on required projects thereby teaching students to provide constructive feedback and learn from each other. Access alternative formats of materials (including audio, Braille, ePub and HTML) to accommodate students with disabilities.
“Access an all-in-one web conferencing platform that will allow instructors to hold classes online, and in real-time, or record lectures or short videos to post on their course sites. Access to a community of 4000 other tertiary institutions worldwide. Project Management training.”
Echono noted that “before 2022, our ICT Support Intervention was N15 million for Universities and N7.5 million for Polytechnics and Colleges of Education. We took bold steps to increase this intervention to N100 million for Universities and N50 million for Polytechnics and Colleges of Education.
“We envisaged that we would be able to address two main issues: (a) problems common to all our institutions, and (b) problems peculiar and unique to each institution. And we have done this by introducing converged services, which this programme is a part of, and by issuing guidelines for FY21/22/23 which will enable utilization of Funds to address each institution’s peculiar ICT needs.”
