THE Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) has, in the last seven years, committed a sum of N27.76 billion as ICT intervention support to public tertiary schools in the country.
About N3.43 billion (representing 12.5 percent) of the total amount was spent on train lecturers and other workers on digital literacy and productivity skills acquisition alone in those schools under the years in review.
The executive secretary of TETFUND, Mr Sonny Achono, gave the revelation in Lagos while delivering the 26th convocation lecture of the Lagos State University(LASU), Ojo, recently
He noted that the universities got the largest share which was N15.59 billion out of the total allocation, while the polytechnics and colleges of education got N6.37 billion and N5.80 billion respectively.
Achono, who spoke on ‘Higher Education in the Digital Age,’ explained that the essence of investing such a huge amount of money on ICT in tertiary schools is to demonstrate that the 21st century economy requires that graduates possess relevant digital skills to thrive and contribute significantly.
He observed that though the world is bedevilled by massive unemployment, the fact remains that most companies, globally are complaining about their inability to fill open vacancies due to shortages of people with relevant skills to man the openings.
He declared that Nigeria is not exempted from this challenge, hence the need to produce graduates and other skilled workers, who would be fit-for-purpose.
According to him, “at TETFund, we are fully aware that the future of education in Nigeria is inseparably hinged on the development of capacity in digital literacy and skills to address the acute dearth of workers with in-demand digital literacy and emerging skills as well as the mismatch between the skills which graduates possess and employers need in this 21st century.
“That is why our investment as an agency on ICT is so that our tertiary schools would also operate in accordance with the global best practices,” he maintained.
In her welcome address earlier, the vice chancellor of LASU, Professor Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello, said that the outbreak of Covid-19 and resultant global lockdown had exposed all countries and institutions to a reality that activities on digital space are indispensable.
She mentioned that LASU is now carrying out most of its activities both on site and digitally.