MTN Foundation Equips Nigerian Educators with AI Skills for Modern Classrooms

The MTN Foundation, in collaboration with Senator Abiru Innovation Lab (SAIL) and Co-Creation Hub, is conducting a 12-week digital training program for Nigerian educators. This initiative aims to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) tools and skills into daily classroom delivery and administration, with the goal of enhancing teaching and learning and equipping educators with essential 21st-century digital and AI competencies. This program targets a diverse group including teachers, administrators, counselors, and tutors across Nigeria.

A key component of the training, highlighted in its tenth week, involved sessions led by Data Science Nigeria's Oluwatobi Olayanju. These sessions focused on AI literacy, responsible technology use, and practical application of AI tools in education. Participants were introduced to various AI resources such as chatbots for lesson planning, visual design platforms, text-to-video/audio converters, and assessment generators. The program also directed educators to centralized repositories like ditchthattextbook.com for discovering and applying modern digital tools.

The initiative is particularly significant given the challenges within Nigeria's education system, including a high number of out-of-school children and existing gaps in teachers' digital skills. Citing data from UNESCO and the Brookings Institution, the article underscores the urgent need for programs that upskill educators. The MTN Foundation's SAIL program directly addresses these deficiencies, aiming to align with Nigeria's National Policy on Education, which advocates for teachers to act as facilitators of modern learning.

Feedback from participants, gathered through interactive quizzes, indicates the program's positive impact on educators' productivity, student assessment design, and AI-assisted lesson planning. Joy Medupin from Co-Creation Hub affirmed the program's success in preparing a cohort of educators proficient in integrating AI into teaching and learning, thereby fostering a more technologically advanced and effective educational environment in Nigeria.