Expert tasks FG on policy to check abusive use of ICT

To check the abusive use of Information Communications Technology (ICT) among students in secondary and tertiary institutions in the country, the Federal Government has been urged to adopt a policy to contain the rise in trend by instituting an enlightenment policy.

Such policy should be anchored by state ministries of education, which should go round schools for students to see reasons why some non-educative sites will further cause distractions and waste their time.

Director of Schools, Dansol High School, Lagos, Esan Oladapo who stated this in Lagos recommended that the policy should be able to disabuse their minds from getting to sites that are not educative.”

Oladapo who spoke on the theme, “Making a godly difference through technology,” at the school’s speech and prize-giving day in Lagos noted “as educators, we observed recently that among the school leavers, youths and secondary school students, even in the tertiary institutions, they abuse the use of technology.

“As a Christian school, we believe strongly that technology can be used to enhance knowledge in a Christ-like form. Hence, the need for us to tag the lecture on the usage of technology in a godly way so as to further enlighten our students that they can still use technology in a positive and Christ-like form, as well as still make positive exploits and achieve their godly dreams.”

Decrying the abuse of technology, he said that rather than use it for improving and acquiring more knowledge, some students misuse it by visiting sites that do not aid their educational pursuits positively.

Also, he lamented that some students spend a lot of time on sites that will not enhance acquisition of knowledge or improve them academically, adding that this act “will further cause a lot of distractions, leading to their being influenced by whatever they might have watched through those technological devices, as it even affects their attention span in classes.

“We felt that as a school, this programme will afford us an opportunity to further re-educate our learners and even their parents so that when they leave this place, they will be able to take something home to educate those ones that were not privileged to be here today.”

Speaking on the role of IT in educational development, Oladapo said, “Today, IT is a major tool towards accelerating educational development in so many ways.

“Many students are able to study beyond what their teachers would have taught them traditionally in the classrooms because there are a lot of educational sites that are very free, which will further enhance acquisition of knowledge on the part of the students.

“So the IT development in education has exposed students to further areas that they can use to enrich their knowledge.”