Tetfund Vows to Bridge Digital Skills gap

By Temitope Mustapha, Abuja

On Jul 10, 2023

The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) says it is determined to bridge the digital skills gap between industries and the academy.

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.

According to Echono, “bridging the digital skills gap would help produce graduates that are globally competitive”

 He added that the need for capacity building, internet access availability, electronic journals, data base subscription and many others have been identified in various institutions.

He emphasised the importance of digital technology as a way of advancing research of the beneficiary institutions and the nation at large.

Minimum Academic Standard

Echono hinted that the Federal Government had drafted a policy as a minimum academic standard which would require that graduates possess an ICT knowledge before graduation.

Read Also: Tetfund, Students Association partner to monitor Projects in tertiary institutions

He said that digital literacy was necessary as the country was not producing enough skill manpower that would service the country’s over 220 million people.

He also said that there were mismatch between employers and skills produced by graduates, hence the need to close the gap.

”In today’s world, there is the template on which one can operate.

”Even our teaching staff, non-teaching staff and management staff, including majority of the work force 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 avenue for enhanced research,” he said.

He, therefore, pledged the commitment of the fund to sustain the initiative to ensure every institution is 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 stressed 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 company including richest men and women and most of them coming from non-ICT sector.

”So, we intend to see young technology company coming on top five in the list.

 ”To get this done, we must place emphasis on special skills and no more on theoretical skills because the university is suffering from the connection between industries and the citadel of knowledge,” he explained.