ICT skill acquisition
FG-students must acquire ICT skill before graduation. The Federal Government says it is resolved to close the digital skills gap between industry and schools through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund.
This comes as Sonny Echono, Executive Secretary of the TETFund, stated that the government has devised a policy to ensure that students in higher education acquire digital skills before graduation.
Echono stated on Monday in Abuja at the 2023 Train the Trainer ICT Capacity Workshop for Beneficiary Institutions in the North Central Zone that closing the digital skills gap will assist generate graduates who are globally competitive.
According to him, there is a need in our various institutions for capacity building, internet access availability, electronic journals, database subscriptions, and many other things.
He emphasized the significance of digital technology in furthering research at recipient institutions and across the country.
“As a minimum academic standard, the Federal Government has drafted a policy requiring graduates to have ICT knowledge prior to graduation.”
Echono went on to say that digital literacy was required since the country was not producing enough trained labor to satisfy the country’s 220 million inhabitants.
He also stated that there was a mismatch between the skills required by businesses and the capabilities provided by graduates, implying the need to bridge the gap.
“In today’s environment, there is a template from which to work. Even our teaching, non-teaching, and administrative employees, as well as the majority of our workforce, do not have these digital devices.
“We at TETFund want to do our best to bridge that gap, and if we succeed in ensuring our students are digitally literate, it will make them marketable and create avenues for enhanced research,” he explained.
As a result, he pledged the fund’s commitment to continuing the project to guarantee that every institution is globally competitive and that Nigeria can compete well in the council of nations.