By Favour Ulebor, Dakar
The Chairman of the ECOWAS Parliament Committee on Health and Member of Parliament from Cabo Verde, Dr Orlando Pereiza Dia, has called on West African countries to allocate at least 30% of their national budgets to education, saying such investment is key to driving local production and reducing dependence on developed nations.
Speaking to journalists on Thursday at the ongoing meeting of the Joint Committee on Education, Science and Culture, and Communication in Dakar, Senegal, Dr Dia said the role of parliaments, both national and regional, is to champion innovation and technology through education.
Dr Dia stressed the need for ECOWAS countries to integrate innovation, information technology, and artificial intelligence into education systems as a foundation for sustainable development.
He said prioritising EdTech would help West Africa become more self-sufficient by transforming local raw materials into finished goods, creating jobs and wealth.
He said, “The role of the Parliament is the promotion of technology in education.
“I had to speak today about the need and the role of Parliament, of our Parliaments, both the ECOWAS Parliament and our national Parliaments, in the sense of promoting the education sector, technologies, and innovation, which are very important sectors for the process of economic and social development of our respective countries.
“We must strengthen investment in education so that our countries allocate at least 30% of their respective budgets to the education sector, so as to properly introduce into school curricula; in primary schools, secondary schools, in universities, everything that has to do with information technologies and also with innovation.
“We have to invest heavily in education, in technology, in innovation, so that we can industrialize our sub-region, transform our products, produce more, create wealth, export, so we are less dependent on other countries.
“Our sub-region has the conditions that, by strongly investing in education, in innovation, in technologies, in industrialization, in the transformation of our natural resources and therefore producing through factories, industries, exporting to other countries, we can create wealth and have sustainable economic and social development.”
He warned that the current practice of exporting raw materials and importing finished goods is hurting development.
He said, “So far, what have we done? We have allowed developed countries to come to our sub-region, to take our natural resources, take them, transform them, and sell them back to us. We have to do the opposite.
“Instead of exporting crude oil — no. We extract the oil, explore the oil, transform the oil into petroleum products, and export those already transformed products. We have cocoa, we must have chocolate factories. We must reverse the current situation we have.”
Also speaking, former ECOWAS Parliamentarian Mr Ibrahim Diouf called for harmonised education policies across member states, especially in the area of EdTech.
He urged the ECOWAS Parliament to harmonize teacher training and curricula, support research and innovation, promote collaboration among reform actors, and implement regional corporate social responsibility policies. He also stressed the need for strong follow-up and evaluation mechanisms.
Diouf warned that although ICT use in schools is growing, its true impact remains unclear due to lack of planning, poor infrastructure, and limited internet access.
He said, “The challenge is the evolution towards a regional education system harmonized with the introduction of ICT, characterized by the delivery of the same diplomas, on the one hand, and on the other hand, a better adaptation to the socio-economic realities and needs of ECOWAS.
“Even if the use of ICT in education systems is increasing, their impact in teaching and learning remains difficult to determine accurately for several reasons: malfunction in the device in place, lack of strategies, scarcity of resources, and the real impact is difficult to quantify and qualify,” Diouf said.
He concluded by urging educators to focus on using digital tools strictly for learning purposes.
“We appeal to teachers involved in the use of ICT in our schools to use it only for educational purposes. ICTs in themselves are only means. Therefore, it is necessary today to rethink their mode of integration in education and training by setting up the human and material resources necessary for the involvement and sustainable development of educational ICTs,” he added.