Director General of NITDA Kashifu Inuwa flanked by the Executive Director of Operations and Programmes of Afre.lib Mrs Joice Gomina, members of the NITDA Management team and other representatives of Afre.lib
The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa, has said the Agency is committed to achieving a 70 percent digital literacy level by 2025 through innovative approaches in delivering initiatives, continuous collaborations, and stakeholder engagement.
Inuwa disclosed this while receiving representatives from the Afre.lib Academy led by the Executive Director of Operation, Mrs. Joice Gomina, who paid a courtesy visit to the Agency’s Corporate Headquarters in Abuja.
He said from the digital literacy perspective “We have three key areas, firstly, is the Formal Education where we are working with the minister of education to review curriculum and infuse all these skills in formal education, but we have a lot to do to achieve that in terms of training the teachers, getting the equipment available for them to use and so on.
“Sencodly, for those outside the formal education (informal), we have an initiative which we call the Digital Literacy for All where we are working on building an Edtech platform (a Learning Management System) where people can learn at their own pace. We are looking at translating it to Nigerian Languages so that people who cannot read and understand English can do so in their local languages.
“We are exploring partnering with the National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) as they are in 774 local government areas, to be onboarding people and making the content as simple as possible; So that anybody who listens to or watches these contents can pick something from it. We also believe going through the NYSC will help us reach the critical mass we are looking at.
“Finally, we also have the formal workforce, which is to train people working for the government and private sector because the workforce needs to be digitally literate to increase productivity at work.”
Inuwa assured the Academy of the Agency’s full support as both organisation share the same vision of fostering IT development and digital literacy.
“We need to review your curriculum to ensure it aligns with the National Digital Literacy Framework (NDLF).”
He added that NITDA is working to have at least one Innovation Hub per state so that when people learn they can have a place to develop their proof of concept, stating that both organisations can work together in the aspect of having tech clubs across schools in the country.
Speaking, the ED Afre.lib, Mrs. Gomina, said the purpose of the visit was to seek NITDA’s partnership as co-host of Afre.lib Academy’s boot camps in August; 2024 Tech and Career Expo with the theme “Tech for Earth” in September; to have the DG as a Keynote Speaker and sponsorship support for their Tech Challenge Winners.
She stated that the Academy which is made up of a team of experts and passionate educators has seen the gap between young children who are digital natives and their teachers who are still using old methods to prepare them for a future that is constantly evolving; adding that the Academy is working on building a platform where these children will be mentored and given a safe space to explore technology within the ethics of morality.
“We want to reduce that entitlement mentality and increase that mentality of citizenship, responsibility, and showing them that they can contribute to nation building using technology.
“Some of the activities of the Academy include, boot camps for children, summer tech challenges teacher training as she appreciated the Agency for its willingness to support and partner with the Academy.
“The Academy did a demo of some of the prototypes developed by children who have undergone training with them,” she said.
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