By Vivian Onyebukwa
Government has been urged to include gaming in the school curriculum to enable students in Nigeria to compete favourably with their global counterparts.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Game Evolution Technologies, Kunmi Adenipebi, who made the call during The Omniverse Africa gaming tournament prize giving ceremony held in Lagos, said that when balanced, gaming can be incredibly valuable.
At the event, where 32 gamers got N5 million reward, Adenipebi affirmed that gaming does not distract students from their studies saying, “In fact 90 percent of professional gamers excel academically, proving that gaming doesn’t hinder academic success. The word distraction means that gaming is not allowing them to read, which I beg to differ because for the professional gamers or the gamers that we’ve seen in the past couple of years, 90 percent of them are actually doing very well in schools. Gaming is actually for smart people. What we’ve done and most especially for the younger ones, when we’re talking about primary and secondary school, before you become part of our industry, we make sure you’re doing well in school. So, we can’t really control how they play or when they play. But the most important thing is letting them know that education comes first, and they must be doing well to be part of one of us because gaming is actually for smart people. So we make sure we drive the importance of education to the kids while they are playing games. We introduced what we call gamification in education, which is adding new games to allow them to study with their games. We have gamification in different subjects like Mathematics, English, Geography, and others. We also introduced those games to them to help them pick interest in education. So all those are the measures that we go through to make sure that there’s a balance between gaming and education.With a staggering N5 million prize pool distributed among 32 champions, the event solidified Omniverse Africa’s commitment to empowering and recognising talented sports athletes.”
He appealed to parents to see gaming as a gateway to education and intellectual stimulation.
Corroborating Adenipebi, Co-convener of The Omniverse Africa, Charles Emembolu, said that gaming is no longer just a hobby; but a profession, sport, and a gateway to honing valuable skills that are handsomely rewarded. “Beyond the tournament’s prize money, gamers have the potential to earn through in-game tokens and coins. But more importantly, the industry is a significant job creator, with annual revenue exceeding $400 million.”
He further highlighted the industry’s potential to contribute to the nation’s economic growth by attracting foreign investment, saying it is a gateway to education and intellectual stimulation