Segun Ayinde, Abeokuta
In today’s fast-paced, technology-driven world, it’s clear that tomorrow’s leaders must be equipped with the skills to navigate and innovate in the technology space to integrate technology into every aspect of its learning system to tackle and resolve tech driven future challenges in any organizations of working space they found themselves both in and out of the country.
To this, Daywaterman College located along Abeokuta-Sagamu Expressway in Ogun State, is at the forefront of preparing and building its over 300 students for workplace of future is tech-driven and would soon be enrolling additional 150 students for 2025/2026 academic session some of which would be given scholarships to enjoy the college’s curriculum, where technology is not just a subject, but a way of life for the students.
The school is not just is focusing on the current technology trends of Information Communication Technology(ICT) but also embracing emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) which the college recognizes that AI is no longer a futuristic concept, but a present-day reality that is already transforming both small scale business like Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises(SMEs) and industries as well.
The First Black Principal of Daywaterman College, Mr. Ahmed Kamal, during an interview at the school, said that by incorporating AI and other emerging technologies into the school’s curriculum, and with the modern learning facilities and manpower available in the school, he was certain that the students would be equipped with tech knowledge and skills not only capable of improving their creativity and innovation skills but also capable of changing the world.
Kamal said that as new technologies continues to evolve, the college would continue to keep the students abreast with the new innovations as they would be allowed to experiment creativity through critical thinking, explore and learn from their mistakes so as to build a community of future tech leaders who are equipped to tackle the challenges of tomorrow and develop next generation of tech leaders and innovators.
He said that the school wasn’t just about learning the latest technologies, but developing the skills to apply them in real-world scenarios. Through project-based learning, hackathons, and collaborations with industry partners, students gained hands-on experience in solving complex problems and creating innovative solutions for present and future challenges.
The principal said that the college is equipped with a state-of-the-art facility tech lab where students could experiment with the latest AI technologies and could work on projects ranging ICT, natural language processing to computer vision, pushing the boundaries of what was possible, to mention few, which would make the students better tech innovators in the future.
He said “You can hardly function in any place unless you are techy, Everything we do in our school has technology embedded in it. Our learning system is tech-driven. If I am preparing young people who are going to operate in a place of work using tech- tools then my preparation must also be driven by tech tools.
“It is not that we teach tech as ICT, but as a course in the school. And every other thing in this school is driven by technology. You see for us the use of tech in our learning and teaching processes is just a way of life and not a curriculum yet we teach it as subject in the school for reasons of examinations, but as a way of life teach is an everyday thing.”
“It is not planning, it is already part of the things we do, we are everyday in a tech space, we scan the environment to find out what is new in tech what is changing, all of us is are already using AI to do things. We are AI familiar, as another door frontier is open, we are following it, because we understand clearly that if you don’t go embrace change and adapt to it change is going to happen when you are ill prepared and you become a victim of change instead of reaping the opportunities that change bring.”
“So as a school all the new things happening in tech we are abreast of them, we explore them, we adapt to them, but in this adaptation we also look at how can we do tech safely for young people, how can we let our students use tech in a way that their interest and welfare are not injurious but the principles around this is that they must use tech responsibly.”
“There are rules around tech use here, while every child has a tablet or network through which they access learning because they have to charge of their own learning and to put ownership of learning in the hands of young people they have to be able to do research collaborate and work with other people this is easier and best doing with tech however they are fireworks and boundaries set and they are also eduction on the responsible use of tech but beyond this we also monitor what they do either remotely or physically.”
“We are a top tech school, we are top in class and our business and for this reason we do all the things that we need to do to stay abreast of changes. I think across the globe we are not below any school of our class in what people at our level need to do and what we need to have as a school to use tech to drive learning responsively.”
“This is something that must happen everyday, you must continue to update your tech, you must continue to explore new things you must continue to change what you do because tech is a fast changing volatile environment where somethings that are invoke today will be obsolete tomorrow so your tech investment must be searched that you are fit for tomorrow that you are ready and able to change as tech changes.”
“And since tech is changing over the years and is not going stop changing and will change faster so what we are doing as a school is that our investment in tech is forward looking and we are aware that what we do today might not be what we will be doing tomorrow so we are in a state of readiness to change as tech changes.”
“This is actually the focus of our learning system, the kind of curriculum we operate is very handsome apart from this we have a huge enrichment programme, we have a design and tech programme and our education is focus more on creativity, education is in the capacity to create solutions that can solve world problems and if kids in our school cannot do so then we are not educating them.”
“So our kids are ready we are equipping them with necessary creative skills to solve our problems and we do this through our robust enrichment programme and tech and design programme as well as research which we espoused them to by the provision of tech and opportunity to collaborate with other students across the world.”
“You are in my school today to see the huge investment in infrastructure, environment and tech that we have and even manpower, it would be a disservice to humanity if more young people whose life actually need transformation are not giving access to enjoy this education. So we have open our door for more people seeking genuine and life transformation education to come to our school.”
“And again a lot of Nigeria kids who are in Europe or America are actually need to reconnect with their roots and since we provide a kind of education that will match the type they will enjoy in any country where they currently live then our school is the best place to come to take education compare to the best in the world.”
“We give scholarships for children of low income earners, what we do in private school space is to provide alternative access to education, beyond what government can do, so in our own space we provide top dech education which we know may not come very cheap but however we also know that some talented Nigerian young people whose parents can’t afford our fees are giving the opportunities to come and enjoy our education through our scholarship programme.” he added.
