In the face of dwindling revenue accruals into Nigerian governments’ accounts and the attendant negative implications for provision of social services in the country, the need for a well articulated investment strategy to drive IT education in Nigeria cannot be over-emphasised. Experts have identified the Public Private Partnership, PPP, arrangement as one of the options to surmount the challenge.
In the emerging Internet of Things, a critical factor that will drive digital for the emerging markets like Nigeria, is sustained IT education but unfortunately, the high cost IT education and the pre-requisite skills need to drive however does not seems to be in abundance considering the size of the Nigeria population as well as its growing young population.
Investigations revealed that most IT education providers are from the private sector of the economy, and indeed, until most recently bulk of IT education services in the country were provided by the Indians.
That scenario has put the nation in a position whereby research in IT education is currently at its lowest ebb so that there is a quest for urgent partnership between the public and private sector of the IT education services provider.
Latest report however, recently revealed that the nation may soon end that quest, if proposition from the Warehouse Group Plc., CWG, to manage one of the oldest education research institute in the country gets a nod from the Federal Government.
The technology company said it has the capacity to operate the Nigerian Research and Education Network (NgREN) so as to enable it offer the appropriate shared IT infrastructure for tertiary institutions in the Nigeria, which the country needs to succeed to IT world.
Speaking on the sideline of an ICT education conference, organised by the Nigerian Universities Commission, the American University of Nigeria and the Digital Promise Foundation the Chief Technology Officer of CWG, Mr. James Agada said that his company has been a provider IT service provider in Nigeria and Africa saying that its portfolio of expertise puts it a vantage position to manage the NgREN for the growth of IT education in the country.
Agada who spoke on the topic: “Using PPP to Advance ICT in Tertiary Education” at the 2015 education conference, in Abuja said that CWG can operate the NgREN and provide a high-performance computing facility that will provide world-class tools such as virtual laboratories, simulators and academic and research tools to users at an affordable cost.
“This can be done at a fixed subscription fee per student per semester or on a pay per use basis for both students and the faculty of schools. We are already working on this model and look forward to the support of the NUC and the universities to make it a success.”
According to him, the ability of tertiary institutions in Nigeria to generate useful knowledge depends on access to other repositories, access to tools, laboratories and an ability to work in an enabling ecosystem which technology has made accessible and affordable.
He explained that IT solution tools like Google, Cousera and Authorea that are available today has made it possible to democratise access to an almost infinite pool of knowledge, tools, laboratories and collaborators without hindrances of time and distance.
However, he said, “the cost of acquisition, operating, maintaining and upgrading ICT will make it difficult for Nigerian universities acting individually to achieve as much as they do not have the budget for anything beyond a modest investment in ICT.”
He noted most universities are by nature and law not profit making organisations, so it is difficult for them to make these investments and hope to recoup.
Agada observed that this is compounded by the fact that Government funding of the universities is continually hampered by the fast dwindling revenues stressing that the Public Private Partnership (PPP) option remains the only viable option for funding the higher utilisation of ICT for research and learning in tertiary institutions.
He added that PPP can be made attractive for private organisations if they are allowed to build out and maintain the infrastructure and services while the university community utilises the ICT infrastructure for research and learning within an established social and legal contexts.
Executive Secretary of the NUC, Professor Julius Okojie expressed appreciation for the notable ideas proffered by CWG noting that finance and the absence of visionary leadership has been the bane of the adoption of technology in the education sector for development.
“The prime objective of the conference organizers is a better and more effective teaching, learning, and research through ICT. So far we have been able to decide on some key resolutions and one of them is to strengthen our collaboration with technology services providers to provide quality IT services to universities at affordable rates. That is the greatest takeaway from this conference for me”, he said.
Assessing the performance of IT education in the country so far, Chairman, Publicity, Events and Trade Services Committee, Nigerian Computer Society, Mr. Jide Awe said that it is important to form partnerships between the public and private sectors, which enables the country to meet developmental goals while facilitating the injection of private strengths as well as the improvement of public sector performance and practices.
He said that the PPP in ICT for Development in Nigeria should be aggressively prioritised and supported adding that this is in view of the ability of an ICT enabled, globally competitive private sector to access new markets, generate new employment and economic opportunities, attract investment, promote innovation.
