By Jamiu Ganiyu
Nigeria’s Interior Minister, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has again stressed the importance of tablet of knowledge as a tool that universalizes education in the contemporary world.
The former governor of Osun State gave the admonition today while speaking at the end of a virtual colloquium in commemoration of his 63rd birthday organized in his honour by friends and associates which had three world-class scholars as discussants.
Aregbesola while responding to one of the issues that centred on innovative leadership, technology, and education said “every head of government understand that tablet of knowledge is compulsory and has to be encouraged.”
“It universalises education and process of it, infact, it is the easiest way to make knowledge acquisition simpler and easier. It can be used by those who are not even in the conventional educational centres and those who are in conventional centres, that is the beauty of it.”
“We cannot say it has reached the perfection level the tablet should be, but with the level I took it to, it will serve several needs but it is simply leadership.”
“The more people that are involved in the usage of that device, the cheaper the cost.”
“Besides the hardware which is continuously reduced per annum because what it caused to acquire a tablet some five years ago is costlier than what it is to acquire it today”
The panelists who all contributed from different countries lauded Aregbesola for his innovative thinking and for being able to see beyond the present which must have informed his decision to digitalise knowledge acquisition in Osun about six years ago.
It will be recalled that in 2013, Osun State government under Ogbeni Aregbesola launched the table of knowledge also known as Opon Imo – a program which gave secondary school students free tablets with educational content.
After more than four phases of distribution at intervals, about 150,000 students of the State was said to have been benefited from the program.