Ayoola Akinyeye is a famend educator and administrator, keen about elevating future-ready college students. On this interview with IYABO LAWAL, Akinyeye, who lately joined Chrisland as Director of Colleges, spoke on why know-how and digital literacy are crucial for studying, and the necessity for presidency to evaluation the curriculum to fulfill business wants.
How do you make sure that the varsity’s coverage and practices foster emotional, social and educational progress for the scholars?The college has insurance policies in place, though the energy of a coverage is in its implementation. My job is placing insurance policies in place based mostly on analysis, greatest practices and acculturation. So, we take a look at what greatest observe is; what analysis is saying, and situate it to give you insurance policies that work for us.
However in implementation, I work with regional heads, who’ve the duty of turning technique into operations. So, it’s straightforward for them to know the operations of the varsity, and the way the coverage will get translated into observe.
I’m additionally supported by the standard assurance unit, which checks that the insurance policies are being carried out. There’s additionally the chance and compliance unit that checks the chance and compliance of insurance policies, so, the place there’s a breach of coverage implementation, the unit is contacted to analyze. If the coverage is just not a very good one, we evaluation, but when it failed due to human implementation, we are able to both retrain if we have to, or make adjustments.
My process is to merge educational excellence with behavioural intelligence. By doing this, one can foster an ecosystem the place college students not solely excel academically, but additionally thrive emotionally and socially.
What’s Chrisland doing within the space of know-how and abilities growth to make sure that it raises well-rounded college students? We’ve the infrastructure, though the infrastructure in itself doesn’t clear up the issue, it’s the standard of instructing.We lately re-launched our personal system, which is in its first section, the place we get the kids to know digital literacy, and that features understanding how the world of know-how works, the benefits and downsides.
We’ve embedded digital literacy into certainly one of our very talked-about programmes known as, ‘Prepared for all times,’ which has various modules in it. We train about on-line security, utilizing know-how to assist studying, Synthetic Intelligence (AI), plagiarism and risks. It’s a part of the curriculum that we’ve at all times had, all we did was evaluation and make it future prepared.
On the main stage, pupils do it as soon as every week, whereas within the secondary class, college students do it as soon as every week, however have cluster classes the place they talk about what they’ve learnt, and produce up their very own concepts and options to the issues confronting them.
What I believe is innovative is the best way we now have been in a position to embed it in our curriculum; instructing them about digital literacy, the hazards, learn how to report on-line bullying, learn how to keep protected, and learn how to recognise phishing websites, amongst others.
Additionally, along with the prepared for all times programme, there are clear coverage pointers on what academics can and can’t do, and what they should be careful for. With the correct of assist and coverage pointers, we now have been working it for nearly a 12 months now, and have recorded a very good stage of success. We’re prepared to maneuver to section two, which can embody rolling out for a larger variety of college students and deploying further on-line assets.
We’re additionally organising the Chrisland Academics Academy with the only real duty of designing a curriculum that clearly has AI embedded. I’m not speaking about merely doing a process and utilizing AI; I’m speaking of a curriculum that has tech as its core.
To do this, we have to study classes from China, Finland and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and see how they’ve pivoted their schooling system utilizing AI and tech. It will likely be the job of the instructor coaching faculty to re-craft our whole scheme of labor, to convey out what I might name ‘Chrisland Curriculum Plus,’ which is AI and tech-driven.
By the point the scheme is prepared, we are able to then modify the infrastructure to swimsuit what the scheme requires. The academics’ academy can be like a lab the place we are going to check out and see what’s working and what’s not, earlier than the following educational 12 months.
How do you mix the Nigerian curriculum with the British curriculum? I believe it’s a kind of issues that has come to remain within the Nigerian instructional area. We’ve checked out our curriculum once more, and located the challenges and strengths. One of many issues we’re doing is to make sure we take the perfect in every of those.
For example, on the main stage, we’re adopting the British curriculum in English as a result of it has a stronger scheme of labor than the Nigerian curriculum, however we’re contextualising the tales. We’re embracing absolutely the British methodology of instructing English as a result of their analysis is extra superior.
For arithmetic, the Nigerian maths is extra rigorous, however once more, we’re borrowing the methodology. What the British curriculum lacks in rigour, it has in depth, and what the Nigerian curriculum lacks in depth, we now have in scope. So, the Nigerian scheme is extensive, however its not deep, whereas the British curriculum is just not extensive, however deep. That’s the elemental distinction.
Speaking about Nigerian curriculum, there have been complaints and name for a complete overhaul to replicate present developments. As a seasoned educator, what’s your tackle this?We’d like a curriculum that speaks to our wants, the British curriculum is designed for those that lives in Britain, it’s designed to lift the workforce for his or her folks, so is also the American curriculum. The Nigerian curriculum have to be designed to lift a workforce for Nigerians.Content material sensible, I believe that’s the place a lot of the complaints come from, as a few of these contents are out of date.
The world has moved on, so, the Nigerian business has moved forward of the place the nation’s instructional system is; the requirement of the job market has modified from what the colleges are instructing. I believe it’s that disconnect that’s making folks complain, which is why you see those that are travelling overseas ranging from the underside of the ladder since you have to be skilled in their very own schooling, which equips you for his or her workforce.
So, in all these climes, it’s the business that drives the curriculum. The folks writing the curriculum checks what the business wants, and adjusts it to make sure that by the point you allow faculty, you’re business prepared. What we have to do is to make sure that our curriculum speaks to the wants of the business, not about Britain or china, as a result of we’re not the place they’re; what we’d like are artisans to maneuver our financial system ahead, our curriculum ought to communicate to that.
For me, the curriculum is neither good or dangerous, however does it serve the wants of the market place? if it doesn’t, regardless of what you’re instructing, it’s not working.
By way of content material, a few of topics are out of date, and I’m wondering why such are nonetheless being taught and retained. There are issues within the curriculum that one wonders what we’re nonetheless doing with them. Taking historical past out of the curriculum within the first place was mistaken. You possibly can by no means discover China, America, or United Kingdom take historical past out, why on earth ought to we take out historical past? How we research it’d change, however taking it out was mistaken.How we study is one other main drawback, why should we preserve information in our heads? This should change.
What are the concrete steps taken by the varsity to enhance security and supervision?Like I stated, it begins with educating the kids to make the correct selections, rather more than policing them. You possibly can’t police Era Alpha 24 hours a day, however you will get them to rethink their choices by always participating with them.
We additionally work with various exterior companies, so if we’d like steering, exterior assist is available. We additionally preserve a really strict safeguarding report, extraordinarily confidential, and we’ve carried out it.
