
Schools in Nigeria lack the curriculum to expose children to digital skills - iafrikan
https://www.iafrikan.com/2020/06/15/digital-skills-literacy-nigeria-youth-adults/
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blunte
This is written from the assumptions that digital skills are a primary
concern, and that such skills need guidance and leadership to develop.

I think neither of those concerns are valid.

Teaching fundamental skills, especially from a holistic approach (not where
math, physics, history, etc. are taught in isolation), is vastly more
important. With that foundational knowledge, children can reason and learn
more on their own. This is when basic guidance regarding digital skills can be
offered.

Once a broad platform of knowledge and ability to think is established,
children (and adults) can learn the technical skills easily. If you approach
this education in reverse, people learn how to do a few specific things
without being able to think independently about what they are doing or why
they are doing it. They will certainly have the motivation to learn on their
own.

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watwut
No, kids dont learn work related bits of technical skills by themselves. They
wont learn about file structure, basic maintenance, how to write documents nor
how to copy them.

With no guidance and at least hints about what is possible, they are basically
how old people used to be - clueless and helpless. They then tend to see
themselves as "non-technical" as opposed to "technical" and don't try.

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blunte
Are you suggesting that if you sat a child down in front of a computer and
walked away, they wouldn't eventually know how to do most things?

Children are more likely to try stuff without fear of bad outcomes. It's the
adults who need hand-holding. Children will click everything to see what
happens.

I know this is probably too old for many readers here, but there was a time
when people had VCRs (video cassette players). Most VCRs had a built in
digital clock, and many of those VCRs had no backup battery. One little power
blip meant the VCR clock would reset to something useless and annoying.

Children or grandchildren would be routinely tasked with setting those clocks,
since only they seemed to know how. And almost certainly, those children did
not read the manual to learn how to do the unintuitive things with the limited
interfaces that would result in setting the clock.

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kevin_thibedeau
How many children learn the ins and outs of cmd.exe when modern PCs have so
many compelling distractions not to mention no printed documentation to give
direction?

Naive computer users get locked into local maxima until a need either knocks
them into a more complete understanding of how to do things or they just give
up. The adults in their social sphere are usually no better equipped to
provide guidance.

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snazz
I'm sure that plenty do. I somehow discovered Emacs in the Terminal on the
family Mac when I was much younger and I consider that the start of my
interest in how computers work under the hood (aside: thanks to the GNU Emacs
developers for making the manual so accessible immediately after typing
`emacs` into a shell).

The biggest positive influence from my parents and other adults in my life was
regulating my video game time but not my "playing with the computer" time. I
was pushed towards reading and learning about computer stuff instead of
playing games and watching videos.

I'm sure that some kids need more guidance, but in the age of the Internet,
the subtle push away from entertainment activities might be enough for many.

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Jtsummers
I think it's important to remember that many of the people here are
exceptional, not typical, computer users. I figured out (mostly on my own, my
dad showed me how to get to the prompt itself and that was it) the DOS
interface and BASIC (using contents from a math textbook) at age 8. But that's
not _normal_ , most of my peers who also had computers available to them
figured out video games and that was it.

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vezycash
In Nigeria, computer as a subject is being taught at all levels - primary,
secondary, and University.

For seniors in secondary schools it's called data processing.

Both Computer studies and data processing however, are mainly theory to be
memorized.

The end result is graduates who struggle with basic computing tasks - after
taking 10+ years of computer classes.

Even for computer science students in universities, this theory only approach
changes only slightly. 80% of the semester in programming courses is spent in
classes receiving lectures with the last three weeks in the computer lab.

As for self learning via videos, it's challenging. Nigeria's minimum wage is
below $100. Teachers in private schools (university graduates), mostly earn
below $100 - NGN 38,750 (GOOGLE) monthly.

Back to video learning, wired internet is non-existent. It's all wireless - so
no unlimited internet. 50GB monthly data plan from Nigeria's cheapest data
provider GLO costs 10 thousand naira. Relatively cheap comparing absolute
dollar amount.

10,000 naira is however 33% of Nigeria's minimum wage of 30,000 naira.

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Nextgrid
If you look at the digital "skills" of teenagers in Europe or the US you'll
notice that this problem is not limited to Nigeria.

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axegon_
> both the teens and these adults lack the skills and literacy needed to
> navigate potential risks.

I'd argue that this is common across the globe, not limited to Nigeria. Very
few people bother to take the time to understand the implications and the true
dangers of the internet are. Even till this day, I'm pretty sure that most
people think "oreo" when they see the cookies banners... If anything, I'd
argue children are more likely to know the difference. And there are the
limited cases where some children surprise with how well they are aware of
what is going on, at least on a fundamental level. Deep down, very limited
number of people can tell, the rabbit hole has become ridiculously big.

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Kednicma
I think that looking at Nigeria is instructive precisely because it is so
ordinary among developing nations, while still being massive. Nigeria's
biggest asset is probably its population, and since Nigeria is one of the
most-populated parts of Africa, education is very important for keeping
society on its path. At the same time, any lessons learned about improving
education in Nigeria can be brought to the rest of Africa and the world.

