Remmy Nweke
University of Lagos (UNILAG) would complete the construction of its Centre for Information Systems in the next few days to come, according to the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Ibidapo Obe.
Speaking through the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Academics and Research, Prof. Olushoga Sofola, the VC said this at the opening of train-the-trainers workshop at the Computer Laboratory to kick-off the Digital Bridge Institute (DBI) programme to empower federal institute lecturers nationwide.
Welcoming participants to the occasion, the VC expressed excitement over the choice of UNILAG as one of the centres for the train-the-trainer programme, stressing that in one week or two, the main centre would be fully ready for commissioning.
Chief executive, DBI, Dr. Olu Ogunfemi, said the programme came out of the need to make lecturers’ job easier, noting that lots of students nowadays, are self-taught via online and thus no longer afraid of Personal Computers (PCs), which he said, have been helpful in these students being computer literates.
DBI, he said, was set up to train people initially in the telecommunication sector, but the need to scale the hurdle of convergence, motivated the institute with the support of the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC), to incorporate other relevant areas like core Information Technology (IT).
He urged the participants to embrace ICT as tools to improve their work, saying that those who fail to catch up would face great consequences of being left out in the near future.
He recalled that the evolution of ICT in the country began with the coming of Global System for Mobile communications (GSM).
"In every thing, you now require ICT as a tool and you cannot teach telecom without IT and that’s why DBI emerged," he told participants.
Teachers, he also said, in some other parts of the world, now give and receive lecture.
He said the programme got its financial support from the World Bank, whose educational team visited DBI and informed that there is fund to train federal institution lecturers on ICT.
"With this programme, there is no excuse of lack of fund by any federal institution in training their lecturers," he said.
Dr. Ogunfemi also warned that the concept must originate from the request from interested institutions.
He further pointed out that knowledge acquired thereafter would not be transferred to anybody, even as certificates would be given to participants.
The DBI boss, implored them to embrace ICT, saying, it is here, otherwise, they would be left on a roadside.
"ICT makes things faster and provides speed and accuracy," he declared.
Earlier, the Director, Centre for Information Technology Systems at UNILAG, Prof. Charles Uwadia, had noted that the training is a workshop flagging off the initiative in the zone and attendees would be required to keep up the pace at the respectively institutions.
Participants came from UNILAG, YabaTech, Lagos City Poly, Moshod Abialo Poly, Grace Poly, UNILAG, Babacock University, Redeemer University among others.
ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D
No comments:
Post a Comment