Every Pupil Should Have an ICT Knowledge - NIIT Expert

he Chief Executive Officer of Lagos-based Forte Soft/NITT training outfit, Mr. Dokun Oduyemi, speaks on the level of ICT education among pupils and youths generally, AKEEM LASISI reports.

Are Nigerian youths paying enough attention to computer education?

Yes and No. We have found that the demography and indeed interest varies from place to place within Lagos State in particular and Nigeria in general. Social media has created a platform for the youths to see what is out there and what is achievable.

They are able to compete with youths from places as far-flung as China. This allows for a growing interest among certain demographs. You hear stories about the twitter founder and you start to dream of the impossible. But this isn’t across board.

There is still a very large population out there without access to the global village, and who do not understand what ICT can do for them.

Are there some areas of computer knowledge that young people and other Nigerians have not been tapping into – or they are not aware of?

We are at a stage in this country where one would expect every primary school graduate to have a certain level of ICT knowledge.

Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. Hence we find that a large number of the people that pass through NIIT are still being trained on basics like everyday simple packages.

This shouldn’t be. It is one of the reasons we started the NIIT@Skool Programme, aimed at partnering with secondary and primary schools to ensure a certain level of IT knowledge when these students graduate. The curriculum is so impressive that we have certain countries where it has been accepted as the official curriculum in schools.

However, I believe the change is happening, even if not rapid enough. We are having professionals walking in now stating specific courses they want to do, coming to us with even remote programmes that amaze and excite us.

I’ll say Nigerians are not leaving any area out but we seem to be more interested in hardware/networking than software pathway.

What are the challenges that the typical computer educator/institution faces in Nigeria?

We face the same issues the businesses within the society face. One might say it is worse for us because our clients are also facing these issues and do not expect the same of us.

But these issues are real, and worrisome, from issues of multiple taxation, to power security and even the ills of society at large. For us power is very important because we are an IT training institution. We actually have centres running on generators all-day every day. We have centres with three or more generators, backup to the backup. These are some of the barriers to success in our society.

There is also the added uphill challenge of having to convince potential candidates or clients in certain locations, of the importance and need for ICT education; whereas this is considered essential in all advanced economies.

Finally there is the issue of standardisation. We have a cybercafé that opens up and the owner claims they can train people in courses as complex as network security or advance database management.

They neither have the software nor faculty with the technical ability, but they can get away with taking peoples’ money since no one is there to stop them and standardise these trainings.

How much respect do Nigerian employers give to computer certificates?

In truth we have found that if you maintain your reputation employers tend to respect your certificates. Quite a few firms, even the blue chip ones, have consistently come to us asking for graduates of our training. That tells me we are doing something right. A large proportion of IT professionals out there passed through NIIT, even world-wide, and we have become the standard. So respect for computer certificates, we have found is highly dependent on the institution that issued the certificate rather than on the course itself.

What plans does Forte Soft have towards driving computer knowledge in Nigeria?

We are expanding, and are opening new centres across the federation. We are also expanding our NIIT@Skool programme, even looking at how we can partner with state governments and influence the upgrading of current curriculae being used by the federation. Also having gotten approval under NBTE.

We planning to open a centre to cater to secondary school leavers who haven’t been able to gain admission into tertiary institutions. We laid the foundation for this recently, and will be seeking inspection and approval from the NBTE team in the near future.

Recently, we also opened another NITT centre in Festac area of Lagos.

We, have recognised Festac as a community with a large population of youth, and unemployment ratios across board are high. This is further complicated by the thriving cybercrime amongst our youth especially in this local government. So, we felt the need to properly channel the aptitude of the youth away from crime was absolutely necessary. We also felt a desire to offer proper training to the large population, so as to enable the people be of greater benefit to the society at large.

How has the Ajah centre performed in the past years – against the background of your dreams for setting it up?

Ajah centre has exceeded our expectations. While it hasn’t been an easy ride, the centre has continued to achieve great things in educating the community. It has even gone on to partner with schools in the area to develop ICT capabilities. It has become the springboard and model for our expansion plans.

How many people have you trained – roughly speaking?

It’s amazing what each NIIT centre in Nigeria has done. We have averaged a good number, with NIIT Nigeria training over 3,000 people annually.