Friday, 29th March 2024
To guardian.ng
Search

Microsoft, Google partner AcadaPlus to boost technology-driven sector

By Kehinde Olatunji
06 December 2018   |   4:22 am
As part of efforts to improve on the quality of education in the country, a new technology software, AcadaPlus was recently unveiled to aid teaching and learning in schools.

AFP PHOTO / STR / China OUT

As part of efforts to improve on the quality of education in the country, a new technology software, AcadaPlus was recently unveiled to aid teaching and learning in schools.

The founders, Stephen Ovadje and Deji Mabogunje explained that the software is a premier school administration and analytics platform that offers school communities intuitive tools, dashboards and insights to monitor and drive students’ performances.

According to them, the software provides simple, intuitive apps to enhance teaching and administrative productivity.

Already, a partnership arrangement with Microsoft and Google has been introduced to for effective technological development of the sector.
They added that the tool, through data visualisations and analytics enables teachers, students, parents, and administrators evaluate performance anytime and anywhere, on any device.

Specifically, Ovadje explained that the concept came to the duo two years ago, when they decided to come to the Nigerian market to study and understand the mechanisms.

According to him, during their interaction with teachers and school owners, lots of challenges were revealed as they discovered that the premise upon which the sector’s data existed was not good enough.

“Most educationists were using physical papers to track admissions, students’ enrolment and attendance thereby making the process manual and stressful. This was why we built a platform that meets and digitalise all the processes of the education sector. This app takes grades and graduating report cards, which takes away the administrative burden from teachers.

“The apps help to automate and digitalise things. Ultimately, what we are trying to do is gather all those data and send back as analytics to the school. There is need for teachers to open to these tools; technology should not be kept at the Information Technology department.”

On his part, Mabogunje listed the challenges in the sector as staff capacity, technology and sophistication of IT staff and teachers.

“The tool was built to suit the Nigerian education sector. Using the British and Australian products is lots of work as it would require modifications in order to fit the environment, and this does not work sometimes. Trying to use a system built for another country doesn’t work. So the idea of building a local solution was very appealing

“Our approach was to start with private schools before going into the public ones. We have started conversation with the Federal Ministry of Education and our goal is to start with the Federal Government Colleges (FGCs).”

0 Comments