Bukola Afeni
The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) said the agency is collaborating with the Ministry of Education in infusing digital literacy into all academic institution’s curricula.
The agency said the body is also developing standard training with certifications that would be a prerequisite for securing government employment.
NITDA Director General, Kashifu Inuwa
stated this when he played host to the Senior Special Advisers to President on Community Engagement – South East, Barr Chioma Nweze; South West, Ms Moremi Ojudu and North West, Hon. Abdallah Tanko Yakassai.
The team visited the Agency to discuss possible areas of collaboration on Nigeria’s digital transformation journey
The DG said NITDA is already working with the Head of Service to ensure certification is a requirement for government workers to be digitally literate.
“For the market people, artisans and so on, what they need is the literacy to use digital devices to access internet banking, government digital services and others. We have therefore been exploiting many channels to deliver them through TV programmes, social media, radio, roadshows and so on.
“We are set to collaborate with relevant organisations in effectively cascading the benefits of digital technology to all the local governments across the country”, he averred.
The NITDA Boss stated that, the 3 Million Tech Talent programme was another initiative of the Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy in collaboration with the agency to identify skill gaps in the country and build youth’s capacity on skills in high demand locally and internationally.
“We have started the training and so far we have trained over 30,000 and completed the first phase which is a pilot. We are now executing the second phase of the training,” he said.
Hon. Yakassai appreciated the DG NITDA for his wonderful presentation by sharing insights into the various activities of the agency to ensure a digitally empowered nation by building the digital capacities of Nigerians.
He however expressed his team’s willingness to collaborate with the agency in the areas of propagating the agency’s activities to the grassroots throughout the 774 local governments in the country.
“Mr President is a grassroots person that is why he created this office so that we make sure whatever the government is doing is taken down to the grassroots level.We need to show the people the importance of your programmes and how they can key into it”, he stated.
