Peter Ejiofor, the chief executive officer at Ethnos IT Solutions has urged the federal government to go beyond the mere introduction of cyber security, and information and communication technology among others as new courses in universities to ideal knowledge transfer.
Ejiofor in a chat with BusinessDay explained that the new economy is technology-driven, which makes the idea awesome, but insists that there must be proper course design and delivery methodology to get the best out of this policy.
“Tech knowledge comes with a lot of values because the new economy is going to be tech-driven. However, the problem is whether the course design is ideal to impact practical knowledge,” he said.
The tech expert reiterated that the courses should be tailored to enable students to solve problems by engaging experts who are capable of transferring the knowledge inherent.
“We have had a situation where a course such as computer science was introduced, yet students graduate with little or no practical knowledge of the course. It has always been theoretical knowledge transfer that gets the students nowhere beyond the classroom,” he noted.
Similarly, Greg Ezeah, a senior lecturer at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, applauded the idea because of contemporary issues befalling the country, especially in the area of insecurity, and cybercrime, but calls for adequate implementation of the course design.
“Yes, our country needs such courses now because of the high rate of cybercrime, and socio-economic and ethnopolitical insecurities ravaging the entire world, especially developing countries. It is even belated for such programmes to have started in Nigeria,” he said.
Stanley Boroh, a senior lecturer at Federal University, Otuoke in Bayelsa State sees the introduction of these new courses as a good move by the NUC.
“I think it is coming at the right time and that is because ICT is the new oil well and also rules the world. Hence, introducing these new courses is paramount now.
“Across the globe today, data science is a big deal and selling very well because data is life. Without data, there will be no meaningful development,” he said.
However, Stanley Alaubi, a senior lecturer at the University of Port Harcourt is worried that the blanket introduction of the courses will not yield the needed result,
“Government wants to monopolise education and it won’t help the development of the individual institutions in the nation,” he said.
The federal government recently approved the introduction of cyber security, data science, and information and communication technology, among other new courses that students would be admitted to study in Nigerian universities.
The National Universities Commission (NUC) inaugurated a committee to create the new core curriculum and minimum academic standards for universities.
Abubakar Rashed, the NUC executive secretary said the new core curriculum and academic standards followed a review of the existing benchmark minimum academic standards that Nigerian universities are using.
Cyber security according to the NUC boss is a course that individuals and organisations now look forward to getting its graduates.
“This is a course that will allow the students to understand the rudiment of the protection of internet-connected systems including the hardware, software, and data from internet threats. Across the world, individuals and organisations now employ the practice to protect their information against unauthorised access or intruders.”
Data science includes preparing, exploring, and visualising data. Data scientists collect and analyse data for information to remain authentic and genuine.
While the information and communication technology course is an umbrella term for a diverse set of technological tools and resources used in transmitting, storing, sharing or exchanging information.
Nigerian universities will now offer this course for interested individuals. Other courses are information systems, software engineering, and computer science.
