Janet Samuel, Abuja
As the urgent need for Nigerians to embrace ICT skills increases rarher than relying on mere certificates, An educational organisation, Fides Et Ratio Academy, is set to embark on massive training programme that will bridge the skill gaps in the country.
Speaking with Newsman in a press briefing on Wednesday in Abuja, Chief Executive Officer of the Academy, Paul Chukwuma, said the Academy was established in 2006 to address the problem of skill gaps in the country, adding that the process of establishing anothet university in his home town is also on going to fill the gape in education.
Chukwuma disclosed that the academy will in a few days time roll out a massive programme that will go a long way to bridge the skills gap in the country, expressing his readiness to continue to partner government agencies and other relevant stakeholders to add value to the nation’s education system.
While enjoining the Nigerian media to spread the news of ICT skills development in the country, he added that the rate of unemployment problem in the nation can be linked with the production of graduates who are unable to add value to the certificate acquired as a result of absent of skills.
Chukwuma, who disclosed that he owns an existing university in East Africa, said there is an urgent need to anchor Nigeria’s education system on skill development instead of mere certificates.
“I discovered the basic issue we have in our educational system is that the educational system we were introduced to, and to a very large extent we still carry along with, is deficient in the key essential elements that every human being should think about, and that is skills.
“We prioritized paper qualifications over skills; everybody wants to be a PhD holder; everybody wants to be a professor, even when you cannot defend that title,” he said.
The chief executive, who said that some education institutions in Europe have some of their technical departments headed by individuals without degrees but with skills, added that Fides Et Ratio Academy was established to change the narrative by focusing on skill development.
“In 2006, Fides Et Ratio Academy was established as a training institute that will basically engage in fulfilling this mandate, which I have identified in my own little way while planning to also set up a higher institution of learning, and in 2020/2021, I was able to establish a private university, but it took off effectively in 2022, ” he said.
While emphasizing on the planned skills training programme that is expected to take off soon, , Chukwuma said Nigeria needs to leverage on Information and Communication Technology skills by harnessing the talents of its youth to address the challenges of the country.
“We have the best brains, people whose brains you can’t equate with anything but a computer, because of the kind of ingenuity we experienced that we see coming from the young people that get obliterated along the line simply because they have not been nurtured.
“I felt that it was important to begin in my own little way to bridge this gap that I have noticed. The gap between skill and theory, between practice and theory. You cannot do anything meaningful without practice,” he said.
“There is a need for a connection between institutions and the companies because the problems the companies encountered are supposed to be solved by the research going on at the various institutions, but that is not happening here, that is why we are not getting the number of patents we are supposed to have,”
He said “The kind of brain our guys are putting in all those funny characters and fraudulent activities is not an ordinary brain because it is not easy to break into a system that is protected by all manners of firewalls. Why don’t we get them to channel these to more productive use? With that we will be doing a computing system that exists nowhere, ”
