FG to Include Digital Literacy in Education Curriculum

Oghenevwede Ohwovoriole in Abuja

In Nigeria’s quest to achieve 70 per cent digital literacy by 2027 and 95 per cent by 2030, the federal government is planning to include digital literacy in the nation’s education curriculum.

The Director General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Abdullahi dropped the hint at a media briefing on Wednesday,  in Abuja.

Kashifu, while highlighting NITDA’s, Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan (2024-2027) said that one of the initiatives of the agency was for the Federal Ministry of Education to include digital literacy in the nation’s education curriculum.

He said: “We are working with the Ministry of Education to review the curriculum across the formal education, from nursery to university so that we can infuse digital literacy in our formal education and by doing that, we can empower Nigerians to have digital skills before graduating.

“We are also conceptualising other initiatives like Digital Literacy for All Initiative which will enlighten Nigerians outside formal education, and enable them have access to quality digital content, so that they have the knowledge to navigate around digital technology and digital economy.”

He also noted that women, children and people with special needs will not be left out in the digital literacy drive, adding: “We have other initiatives targeting women, children and people with special needs, so we can carry everyone to achieve that 95 per cent digital literacy.”

According to him, Nigeria will train over two million youths in twelve most highly sought after technical skills so that Nigeria can become a major outsourcing country to the world.

“Apart from digital literacy, we are going beyond that to digital sovereignty, so that we can develop all our digital innovation in-country.

“Therefore, we conducted skills gap assessment to identify skills in high demand locally and globally, and based on that, we have identified 12 tech skills in high demand and we used that to design three million tech talent initiative which is to train three million Nigerians on those 12 identified tech talents in high demand.

“The idea is that when we train them, some will be able to serve local market and some leave Nigeria to get jobs elsewhere for brain export, not brain drain,” he said.

He also noted that just like India currently dominates the tech world, Nigeria can also do the same.

“India started brain export about 20 years ago and today, almost 25 per cent of sea level executives in big techs are Indians and they have dominated the global technology ecosystem.

“So, in Nigeria, we believe we can do the same and we have even more competitive advantage than India, we have a younger population, a fast-growing population, better accent than India, better time zone, so if we position ourselves, we can beat India in technology,” he added.

To validate this, he disclosed that PriceWaterHouse Coopers (PWC) also carried out a research called, “Nigerian Brain Export: The Optimum Path to Developing Nigerian Economy.”

“So, it is not brain drain, if you train people and they leave the country, they will go and get more network, experience and come back or connect back and transfer knowledge that can help the local ecosystem to grow..

“NITDA as a critical agency under the ministry; we crafted our Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan which is a comprehensive document that reflects our commitment to uplifting Nigeria to a premier status in the global digital economy by harnessing the potential of innovation and entrepreneurship,” he said.