LAGOS, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA) – The Federal Government through Tertiary Education Trust Fund have said a policy has been formulated to ensure that students in higher institutions acquire digital skills before they graduate.
Speaking in Abuja earlier today, at the 2023 Train the Trainer ICT Capacity Workshop for Beneficiary Institutions in North Central zone, Executive Secretary, TETFund, Sonny Echono stated 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 stressed the importance of digital technology as a way of advancing research of the beneficiary institutions and the nation at large.
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“The Federal Government has drafted a policy as a minimum academic standard which would require that graduates possess an ICT knowledge before graduation.”
Echono further stressed the importance of digital literacy noting that the country is not producing enough skilled manpower that would serve the country’s 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 the 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 added.