I.T. EDUCATION: Our First Step to Technology Development

I just met a 16 year old boy who doesn’t know how Computers work. He doesn’t even know what laptops are all about. He was VERY SHOCKED to see my tablet PC work. This sounds bitter to me. At 16, Bill Gates kick-started Microsoft. At 16, I established VDrive Technologies(It was Achievers’ World). I designed my first website when I was 12. History is littered with so many Tech Savvies who started great stuffs at a very young age.

The main reason why we were all able to achieve all these (at young age) is due to our Knowledge Bank. I think our first step to seeing a Technological Revolution is to Invest in quality I.T. Education; and this we must do with affordability as a major priority. Numerous Nigerian youths would have subscribed for I.T, Education had it been affordable.

Sincerely, there is no campaign we can launch for the full development of Nigeria’s I.T. Sector that will ignore a budget for I.T. Orientation and Education.

The paragraphs below reflects my thoughts and suggestions on how to make I.T. Education available to all.

THE GOVERNMENT

In my view, I see no reason why each state of the federation should not have an I.T. Training Center. This is our first step to making I.T. Education available and affordable. Since most of the private training Centers have been majorly concerned about profit making (I don’t blame, profit is necessary in business), they automatically make their education expensive for the masses to benefit. This therefore necessitates the government to come in and provide quality and affordable I.T. Education to the populace. Kudos to some state that have this facility in place.

Quality facilitators should be sourced from the private sector. These training centers will focus on all major I.T. Subjects like Desktop Publishing, Microsoft Office packages, Programming (JAVA and the likes), Computer Engineering and many others. The government should then note that our goal our affordability should not rule out the quality of the training.

Another way the Government can help is to partner with existing I.T. Training Institutes(Private) to ensure affordability. Programs should be launched to sponsor some students for some courses at these private Institutes.

An I.T. Education should be launched by the Federal Government and complemented by various State Governments (I will write about this scheme later).

Primary (Yes, I mean it) and Secondary schools should be stocked with high-tech facilities. This will aid in the training of young chaps in I.T. No one can benefit from technology without a working knowledge of it.

PRIVATE SECTOR

The private I.T. Firms should ensure that it is not too expensive for people to enroll in their courses. Applicants should also be allowed to pay in multiple installments (I know this facility already exists in some firms, but I need to re-emphasize it).

I am yet to understand why the big players in the I.T Firm should not have a Foundation that will be committed to making I.T. Education available, accessible and affordable.