VICE-PRESIDENT Yemi Osinbajo has said the Federal Government will use technology to make education more attractive to young people, especially in educationally disadvantaged areas of the country.
Osinbajo spoke on Thursday when he hosted a delegation from Google Global Services in the United States of America (U.S.A) at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
A statement by the Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to the President on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande, quoted Osinbajo as saying the government would support any partnership that addresses literacy and educational challenges, including those of out-of-school children and the girl-child education.
He said: “It might help if we begin to look at something more in the area of literacy-type skills because, really, we are looking at how to expand the whole scope of education, especially education for girls.
“So, the question really is: how can we use technology to make it easier for girls, in particular, to go to school? The reason is that if we somehow bring education to their doorsteps, it might take care of some of the problems around taking them out of their home environment. For us, our education mandate is so crucial.”
Explaining how the Federal Government is partnering different stakeholders, Osinbajo said: “It is an interesting partnership: business, government and civil society working together. We are already looking forward to a lot of the great works that will be done.
“All of that fits into our education agenda, which partly aims at addressing the out-of-school children and the girl-child education issues.”
On behalf of the Google delegation, Mr Doron Avni, the firm’s Government Affairs and Public Policy Director, described Professor Osinbajo as an excellent partner, whose support had enabled the organisation record remarkable success in Nigeria.
He said: “Obviously, we have an excellent partner here who has been doing God’s work. It is thanks to leading partners like him that we are able to be helpful in communities in which we operate.
“We had made a pledge to train 10 million people in Africa by 2022. I am happy to report to you that so far we have trained more than 5 million people. Most important is the fact that out of those 5 million, 3 million are Nigerians.
“With the collaboration that we have with the Ministry of Education, we have now integrated some of Google’s curriculum on online safety into the school’s curriculum. So, we will be reaching 56 million students in Nigeria this year.”

By Bolaji Ogundele