The United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, has described the Nigeria Learning Passport, NLP, as a one-in-a-generation opportunity to transform education in Nigeria.

The global organisation urged all stakeholders in the education sector to key into the digital initiative and take it to the hard-to-reach areas and communities in the country in order to scale up child education in the country.

The Education Specialist, UNICEF Field Office, Enugu, Dr. Agatha Nzeribe stated this during a one day media strategy meeting for media practitioners from Benue, Enugu and Cross River states to determine the key initiatives on

how to achieve uptake of NLP in communities, schools, Local Government Ares, LGAs, hard to reach areas, and for all persons living in difficult circumstances.

Nigeria Learning Passport is an online e-learning platform with mobile and offline capability that enables continuous access to quality education. It was launched in 2022 by the Federal Ministry of Education and UNICEF with the main objective of creating access to bridge the gap to quality learning opportunities for young learners and encourage enrolment across the country.

Dr. Nzeribe identified limited quality education in language children understand, lack of quality curriculum and learning materials as well as lack of qualified and well trained teachers to support provision of quality education among others as some of the challenges facing education in the country.

She noted that the NLP which provides an easily accessible digital learning platform “is the key to the future and without it you are as good as an illiterate.”

According to her, “with the NLP you do not have to go to the classrooom to become educated and to attain any level of education you desire. We can use it in early child education, youths and adolescence education.

“The NLP provides the opportunity for remediation, digital/remote learning, partnerships (private and public), community and parental engagements, integrated safe school services (education, health, WASH) which we must all key into to scale up education in the country.”

Also, the Communication Officer, UNICEF, Enugu Field Officer, Dr. Ijeoma Onuoha-Ogwe harped on the strategic role the media plays in social mobilisation and awareness creation advising that the media take the lead in mobilising Nigerians to key into the NLP.

She stated that “the essence of the meeting is to identify media networks in targeted three states of Enugu, Benue and Cross River states, and get them acquainted with the NLP’s operational mode and it’s potentials for educational advancement among young learners in the states.”

She charged the media to support the initiative through extensive reportage which she noted would turn around the fortune of the country in the education sector.

In his remark, the Director, Benue State E-Learning/Virtual Education and ICT, Mr. Francis Dera who noted the limitless opportunities that the NLP had brought in the education sector said Benue State had already keyed into the programme and assured UNICEF of the enrollment of the targeted users into the NLP platdorm before the end of the year.

Before the advent of COVID-19, digital learning was seen as an exclusive right of private schools, today, the introduction of the Nigeria Learning Passport, NLP, is transforming education in Nigeria and providing students like Akindele and Abigal access to helpful study tools such as multimedia content, including videos, animations, interactive quizzes, practice tests, and progress tracking.

The Nigeria Learning Passport, NLP, is an online e-learning platform with mobile and offline capabilities, enabling continuous access to quality education. It is part of the Federal Government of Nigeria’s education cloud project supported by UNICEF for providing all learners with e-learning from basic to tertiary levels of education. NLP is presently accessible free on the AIRTEL telecom sim card.

For their teacher, Ms. Ramota Alawiye, NLP has made their job easier.

“We no longer repeat sessions like before. The pace at which the students learn in class has improved,” Alawiye.

In the views of the Director, Policy planning research and statistics, Lagos State Ministry of Education, Dr. Adejare Sunday Afolabi said “The way the world is going now, any child that is not familiar with ICT is out of the world. To connect them to the world, we are making sure they have ICT lab and provide tablets for better learning. He said they are partnering with UNICEF among others to provide tablets in schools and a lot of training was being carried out both at the state and local level so that all the teachers will be familiar with the usage of ICT; tablets as children learn better when they are using ICT.

“In Lagos we have about 2,000 schools and to be able to cater for every child in regards of ICT gadget, it requires a lot. Every teacher in our primary school makes use of tablet to teach the students and that’s a plus for Lagos state. When you get to secondary school you will see the same thing, they have tablets and laptops that they use. We expose them to e-learning like Nigeria learning passport. We also have other packages that we use; EKO excel and others to make sure these students are learning and they are using ICT gadgets.”

Afolabi said they are partnering with Airtel and other service providers to ensure they have internet to use the tablets, adding that the NLP has been a success in the state so far. “When it comes to performance in external exams, we are doing fine and we have been seeing results. Children are able to use the offline materials to help their studies and it is providing good results for us.”

Speaking during a field trip to the school, UNICEF Education Specialist, Babagana Aminu, who recalled that in 2020 the world was saddled with the COVID-19 pandemic which resulted in school closures that lasted for over eight months and about 50 million children were kept back into their homes without attending school.

Maintaining that Education cannot wait, he said the Nigeria Learning Passport became inevitable as it provides free access to children which was developed by Microsoft for UNICEF and in Nigeria the federal ministry of education adopted the learning passport.

He also stated that it was launched nationally in March 2022 and on September 23rd, that same year, the Lagos state government adopted it to breach the learning gaps.

Aminu explained that one thing unique about the NLP is the fact that it can be deployed online and offline. “This is one of the uniqueness of the learning passport. It can be deployed in hard to reach areas and communities where internet is not possible. When the app is downloaded on a mobile phone, you can pre download the lessons and you can take it back into rural communities where you will be able to continue using it even without data. There is the offline cupserver. It is a super computer in a box. That box contains everything in the learning passport.

“Right now there are about 15,000 lessons in English, Mathematics, Basic Science, Basic Technology, Computer Science, Diction literacy and vocational training including business studies and biology. These contents are in English, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba, the languages that are spoken in Nigeria so that we can provide children from different backgrounds with content that they can read. Most importantly with the offline device, it doesn’t require internet at all because the device comes with all the content and can be deployed.”

He disclosed that in few weeks, UNICEF will be deploymore devices to 150 schools nationwide. “All you need to do is to have the Airtel sim in the device and login to Nigerian learning passport (Nigeria.learningpassport.org) and you will have free access to it. In 2021 and 2022, we worked with them to provide connectivity in over 400 communities where there is no connectivity at all. We know these requires the device whether laptops, computers or tablets and UNICEF with funding from global partners were able to support 14 states across Nigeria to have the tablets.  “We provided 13,500 tablets and over 1000 phones and the network also provided them with data and the schools have free access to data. About 870 schools are connected to the internet courtesy to Airtel across Nigeria, including Lagos, Kano, Jigawa, Sokoto, Zamfara, Kebbi, Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Bauchi, Edo, Enugu, Benue.”

He said they have over 280,000 users across the Federation while  60,000 of them are teachers. UNICEFis calling for more partnerships to support  Nigerian  children  as many cannot afford to lose their education and education cannot wait. “This is one of the basic rights that each and every child in Nigeria should not be deprived of.”