The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) says it is determined to bridge the digital skills gap between industries and academies.
The Executive Secretary, TETFund, Sonny Echono said this in Abuja on Monday at the 2023 train the Trainer ICT Capacity Workshop for Beneficiary Institutions in North Central Zone.
The workshop is organised by TETFund in collaboration with Fides Et Ratio Academy Limited.
Echono said that bridging the digital skills gap would help produce graduates that are globally competitive.
According to him, the need for capacity building, internet access availability, electronic journals, database subscription and many others have been identified in our various institutions.
He emphasised the importance of digital technology as a way of advancing research of the beneficiary institutions and the nation at large.
Echono hinted that the Federal Government had drafted a policy as a minimum academic standard that would require that graduates possess an ICT knowledge before graduation.
He said that digital literacy was necessary as the country was not producing enough skill manpower that would service the country’s of 220 million people.
He also said that there was a mismatch between employers and skills produced by graduates, hence the need to close the gap.
”In today’s world, there is a template on which one can operate.
”Even our teaching staff, non-teaching staff and management staff, including majority of the workforce do not possess these digital skills.
”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 said.
He, therefore, pledged the commitment of the fund to sustain the initiative to ensure every institution are globally competitive and as well Nigeria could compete favourably in the committee of nations.
On his part, the Lead Consultant, Fides Et Ratio Academy Limited, Mr Paul Chukwuma, said that a number of challenges and gaps were identified through the needs assessment of TETFund.
Chukwuma said that this informed the decision of the fund to bridge the digital gaps in the tertiary institutions.
”It is only in Africa and most especially the Sub Sahara we have the list publishing names of richest companies including richest men and women and most of them coming from non-ICT sector.
” So we intend to see young technology companies coming on top five in the list.
”To get this done, we must place emphasis on practical skills and no more on theoretical skills because the university is suffering from the connection between industries and the citadel of knowledge,” he said.
BRANDPOWER reports that the workshop was organised for Heads of Institutions and Directors of ICT in the North Central Zone of beneficiary institutions who would cascade the training to their various institutions.
