Dr. Gbenga Olowoye is the president of iklass. africa, an e-learning startup for youth and young scholars in Africa. He founded Swissplat Group LLC in Geneva, Switzerland in 2021 to meet the exclusive demands of global sourcing, market progression services and foreign investment. Given the demanding situations posed by COVID-19 for global business transactions, Swissplat has become a reliable business partner for corporations looking to expand their business globally. In the past, Olowoye taught entrepreneurship and business strategy courses at UBIS University Geneva and its satellite campus and also controlled the university’s business progression portfolio in Africa from 2014 to 2016. It publishes on business innovation and investment resources in spaces similar to resource-constrained environments. In this interview with Obinna Chima in Geneva, Switzerland, she explained how to reshape education in Africa. Extracts:
What is your opinion on the state of schooling in Africa?Can you tell us about your iklass initiative? Africa?
A popular quote inscribed on the front door of one of sub-Saharan Africa’s leading universities sums it up well: “Destroying a country does not require the use of atomic bombs or the use of long-range missiles. . . It only asks to reduce the quality of education. . . The collapse of schooling is the collapse of the country. ” My purpose is to enable young people and young academics in Africa to receive quality education through e-learning, it is also about the long term of countries.
I have studied classes and the most productive practices in skills progression for learning projects and how resources can have an effect on the quality of facilities in education delivery in African contexts in my master’s and doctoral theses and dissertations, which provided useful reference data to raise the e-learning project.
This idea helped me expand a successful strategy for the iklass initiative. With a persistent shortage of instructors in many African countries, where there is one qualified instructor for every 43 students in secondary schools, online learning remains a feasible option to help with learning. While some companies are already taking the lead by offering this service, projects are now wanted to enroll in the virtual eco-formula of online learning across Africa following disruptions in the school formula caused by the COVID-19 outbreak. All young Africans want access to an education that prepares them for successful careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, commonly known as STEM fields. This is undoubtedly the most productive advantage of the moment.
As a Nigerian diaspora professional in Switzerland, this is a legacy assignment for me, demonstrating how the strength of schooling can have a significant transformative effect on the next generation. My mother, the late Mrs. Esther Arinola Olowoye, was widowed at the age of 35, leaving her with six children to support. This happened in an African country (Nigeria) in 1971, without a social coverage system, where women and young people were helpless (sadly, this is still the case in 2023), and is similar to Esther’s life and that of her six children were condemned. I think schooling is important, liberating and iklass. Africa will make it available to countless young people in honor of Mama Arinola Olowoye.
So how do you think the generation can generate learning outcomes on the continent?
Africa deserves to be part of the industry of each and every African who has benefited in one way or another from Africa. The beauty of modern times lies in the fact that we can use technology to solve many of the disorders faced by Africans. Today I feel incredibly fortunate thanks to Nigeria, where I got the most productive education imaginable in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, almost for free. I was even more privileged to have met my wife, who has been running for the United Nations as an esteemed Pro for about 20 years, when we were university academics in Nigeria and married for thirty years.
I am pleased to have been able to raise the seed money needed to launch iklass. Africa. Africa, like the rest of the world, wants to make technological advances to gain advantages from its young people. What iklass. Africa does it differently, as a student-centric co-created learning platform is about harvesting the collective wisdom of academics, parents, spouse schools, sponsors, and other vital stakeholders in education to expand one of the most productive, innovative, and affordable online programs. school platforms that will benefit our young people and young scholars in Africa and the world. It’s also very inspiring that all the young tech professionals and support staff who have worked tirelessly to create the platform are African.
We know that Africa is booming, as we can all attest, but we will have to make sure that our young people are not treated as second-class citizens in their own countries just because the Chinese, Europeans and Americans are making an investment of billions. throughout the continent.
The team believes that greater access to high-quality online audiovisual content can have educational outcomes for an increasing number of young people and other young people. They will be wonderful leaders if they are well informed. I call on all other people of goodwill to join me and my team, especially parents, schools, government parastatals and key stakeholders, to ensure that the iklass. Africa is gaining momentum in Nigeria.
So what role does iKlass play in deepening e-learning in Africa?
In a consultation for Tanzanian schools between 2006 and 2014, I observed that there are barriers to schooling in resource-limited settings, endemic in many emerging countries, namely those in sub-Saharan Africa. The preference for identifying an online learning platform for Tanzanian academics was first conceptualized in 2013, but despite our most productive efforts, we were unable to deliver it at the time due to limited web bandwidth, making it difficult to stream audiovisual content.
Things are different today, as increased access to the web has been implemented in several countries in Africa. The Ebola and Covid-19 pandemics provided the ultimate motivation to shape a new team of young Africans founded in Nigeria and Tanzania who have been working tirelessly to deliver the mobile learning app, iklass. africa, which is ready to register in the virtual ecosystem in Africa to expand children’s access to school without restrictions.
What is your solution like?
It deserves to be emphasized once back in that class. Africa will be one of the most affordable and available learning platforms for young people and young scholars in Africa, as an initiative in honour of their late mother, a unique African Amazon. To fulfill this commitment, iklass. Lately, Africa is inviting academics to use the site during the ongoing launch phase. We also hired a number of experienced teachers from selected African countries to help us create the quality audiovisual content needed to make the learning platform a highly engaging online learning environment. .
We can’t do it alone right now to pay all the webmasters, teachers, content editors, media specialists, and staff. That is why we want the help of partners and investors who wish to make Africa a glorious place for our children’s future.
Finally, your recommendation to Nigeria’s current administration on how to educate?
The list is endless, but based on their previous study on education service delivery in Nigeria, there are key and demanding high-level situations that need to be addressed. The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is expected to declare a state of emergency in the box of schooling in Nigeria. Secondly, all stakeholders want to participate in the debate on how the country can negotiate resource limits in a completely unpredictable climate. Threat assessment and SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) research show where there is It is a desire to adjust school policy and iterate on how to make the school formula competitive, unify institutional objectives and direction and explain the logo message while generating an action plan to achieve the goals of student and school good luck in Nigeria.
A long-term solution to improve budget adequacy and belief in service quality will ultimately have an effect on educators’ functionality and service delivery. Second, federal and state ministries of education, as well as others in the school sector, want to approve Back to the drawing board and examine new and state-of-the-art experimental techniques to replace the delivery and delivery of school facilities in reaction to changing technological advances. This deserves to provide an accountability framework for the formula that influences policy directives and eliminates the prevalence of inconsistent monetary policies, dishonesty within institutional management, reporting and stakeholder engagement.
Third, there is a pressing need for co-creation of value in Nigeria’s education and school management formulas. This perception of “city and dress” may help repair the splendor of the public school formula that many notable Nigerians in the diaspora have enjoyed. Citizens will be encouraged to participate actively in the schooling of their children.
In economics, buyers need a market with the maximum festival between sellers, which leads to the highest availability of products and the lowest prices. This is known as increasing returns on the source side and increasing returns on the demand side. Schools, on the other hand, attendance facilitates learning transactions between students and educators. In order to broaden new criteria for educating our children, it is increasingly important to understand the expectations and values of citizens. One such need was known as quality of service. It is imperative to assess whether the effects of the network are effective, as indicated by satisfied teachers and students.
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