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Minister of Communication, Adebayo Shittu, has revealed that the Federal Government intends to establish an ICT university in the country. The institution will become functional in the first quarter of 2017, with the mandate of bridging the gap that currently exists in technology education, media reports say.

Shittu made the disclosure on Friday, at a workshop organized by the Nigerian Computer Society in Abuja. He said that the government would create the new university by expanding the operational scope of an already existing ICT institute, which had six campuses in the country.

“The ICT university will dedicate itself to hands-on trainings”, he said. “We want to have a university of ICT, where the private sector will play a key role in managing the syllabuses, so we can have a skilled workforce.” The minister explained that the process leading up to the setting up of the university had already begun.

Nigeria’s ICT sector has grown in recent times, with several investors and industry players seeking to take advantage of opportunities that exist in its vibrant ICT market. However, there have been complaints from employers of labour and other stakeholders in the sector that Computer Science departments in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions were not producing the quality of graduates needed to fill workspaces being created in the burgeoning ICT industry. Mr. Shittu also lamented about the apparent shortage of skilled manpower but said that the new university was being set up to tackle the problem.

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This article was first published on 5th December 2016

ikenna-nwachukwu

Ikenna Nwachukwu holds a bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He loves to look at the world through multiple lenses- economic, political, religious and philosophical- and to write about what he observes in a witty, yet reflective style.

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