IMPORTANCE OF ICT EDUCATION IN NIGERIA: THE OGUN EXAMPLE

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) refers to a diverse set of technological tools and resources used to communicate, create, disseminate, store and manage information. The tools or technologies include computers, internet, broadcast technologies (radio and television) and telephony. Each of these tools was designed to make our approach to communicate more effective.

In recent times therefore, there has been a groundswell of interest in how computers and the internet can best be harnessed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of education at all levels.

In this regard,  Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Education has been  government’s efforts to teach its current and emerging citizens, valuable knowledge and skills that resolve around computing and communication  devices, software that operates them, applications that run on them and systems that are built with them.

Today, everyone needs a basic understanding of ICT and how to make productive use of it, in order to become better students, workers and citizens. Teaching people how to be competent basic users of ICT technologies is an important role of ICT education, so they will be successful in their academic, work and careers, and can efficiently participate in modern technical society.

As part of the United States government effort to ensure that ICT is brought to the door steps of developing nations,  the South West Resource Centre, one of Nigeria’s biggest modern computer resource institutions situated at Oke Mosan in Abeokuta  was established with the aim of confronting barriers of human beings such as racial, academic and geographical to minimize the digital barrier between the advanced and developing countries thereby bringing computer education to the doorsteps of the people. The result of this vision is already being felt amongst the people of Ogun State.

The Centre, which is Technology and ICT based, has also been a driver that has re-engineered Ogun State and the Nigerian society at large  in terms of commerce in recent years.

The idea of establishing community centres in the country started in 1998 when former US. President Bill Clinton visited Nigeria. He recommended to his government that there was a need to provide community members in Nigeria with educational skills that would enable them relate better with developed countries. It would also ensure that Nigeria would be fully integrated into the world economy and trade system.

 Six community resource centres were thereafter established by the American government in the six geo-political zones of Nigeria; namely Abuja, Bauchi, Calabar, Enugu, Kaduna. However, the  Abeokuta centre represents the South-West region states including Lagos, Ogun, Osun, Ekiti, and Ondo States.

In Ogun State, the  key objectives of South West Resource Centre is to bring the benefits of modern information technology to a broad spectrum of activities as  well as provide information technology training at various levels which include beginners and certified users to meet world standards.

Other objectives of the Centre are to provide communities with access to education, training, skill development and technology and also serve as a focal point for activities in leadership development, health education, adult literacy programs, business development, local governance, civic education and advocacy without leaving out Complementary programs with special facilities for the physically challenged.

No one can deny the impact that technology continues to have on almost every aspect of our daily lives, or the speed with which new developments are adopted. To this end, South West Resource Centre became an accredited Regional Cisco Networking Academy in 2009 and later an Academy Support Centre (ASC) for English-Speaking West and Central Africa in 2012.

The coordinator of the Centre, Mr. Tunji Akoni revealed that, the Centre has about 85 Academies distributed across southern Nigeria and the Gambia. The Academies are spread across Public and Private Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education run different Cisco programs.

The role of the South West Resource Centre in this regard is to monitor activities of these various Academies to ensure they conform to the Quality Assurance Policy (QAP) of Cisco International.  About 16 new Academies were brought on-board in 2014, and more academies have applied and are waiting for Cisco approval. In addition, 10 Academies have joined the ASC and in May 2015, the Instructor Training programme was conducted.

With this role as an ASC and an ITC, South-West Resource Centre  now supervises  about 90 Cisco Academies distributed all over Nigeria and the Gambia . This however has given the Ogun State Government an edge over other states and also called for greater responsibility and dedication.

Today, the  Centre has successfully used its activities to bring the benefits of Information Technology to South West zone, particularly  in Ogun State under the dispensation of  Senator Ibikunle Amosun . So far, over 20,000 people have been trained on computer appreciation, Internet exploration and other IT- based courses.

Recently, the centre offered free ICT training for Secondary School Students across the State to broaden their knowledge on computer applications. The training was embarked upon to equip secondary school students with basic computer appreciation skills needed to prepare them for the newly introduced Computer Based Test being conducted by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board.

Furthermore, apart from examination purpose, the training would also assist the students in their studies by searching for data and information on the internet, because today businesses relied mostly on technology to promote products and services.

As part of its social responsibility and a way of giving back to the public, the South West Resource Centre has continually organized Bi-annual scholarship program for the citizens of Ogun state, especially students, Youth Corp members, Public servants and the general public. This programme has helped in bringing IT education to the doorsteps of the entire public at a highly subsidized rate and even free of charge for people that performed well in the scholarship examinations.

There is no gain-saying that currently South West Resource Centre has  achieved the dreams of the Americans that brought the idea of the centre, towards meeting the IT needs of the Southern Nigeria. So many factors have been responsible for this, and these must be addressed in other to move the centre forward.

More importantly, in order to  be self-sustaining, all IT related training and programmes of state and local governments must be handled by South West Resource Centre. Similarly, mushroom training centres or Institutions must no longer be allowed to handle trainings for government and its agencies. The centre must be fully returned to the Bureau of Information Technology as it was in the beginning, for supervision and control as this will be an avenue to generate revenue to government coffers.

In addition, the centre’s training unit requires proper staffing for effective and efficient teaching and learning process. Also,in order to save cost, qualified instructors and tutors who are members of the Computer Professionals of Nigeria (CPN) could be moved or seconded from Schools and the Civil service.

Finally,for easier access to  internet  services, a strong dedicated Internet Connectivity through the Cisco programs and activities which  is 100% on-line could also be linked to  Laderin and Oke-Mosan communities for students  and workers  to enhance productivity , a service which could be made available at reduced cost by the Centre.

It is hoped that the state government will give approval for more training programmes for Public and Civil Servants at all levels, a programmes that will be of great benefit to their daily operations. It will help boost their efficiency level and help reflect the Ogun standard.