FG Set To Establish Six ICT Universities

The Federal Government has announced plans to establish at least one Information and Communications Technology (ICT) university in each of the six geo-political zones of the country. The minister of Communications Technology, Barr. Adebayo Shittu, confirmed this while delivering his keynote address on Friday, at a one day ICT sensitization workshop for secondary schools in the FCT, organised in collaboration with Totalview Nigeria and the National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA.

                         Barr. Adebayo Shittu

The Minister, who was represented by the Director of ICT in the ministry, Mrs. Monila Udoh, explained that the plan for the university was to close the digital divide that exists in the country at the moment. According to him, the university, when established, would  focus on “training teachers that will in turn go to other schools to train other Nigerians.’’ ‘‘With modern facilities, it would do Nigeria more favour to convert such an institute to a focused ICT university that will train teachers that will go into our schools to train our young people, and then over time graduate highly skilled technocrats that can compete in the global market and create jobs.’’

In his address, the Managing Director of Total View, Mr. Charles Ozoemena, said that part of the aim is not only to inspire the consciousness of school children, on what they can use ICT to achieve as future ICT experts but also strengthen the awareness with a view to catching them young to embrace ICT as part of their growing up.