More than 350 young Nigerians are expected to gain digital literacy and skills through the CyberSchool Africa’s Innovation Development and Effectiveness in Acquisition of Skills (IDEAS) Technology Skills Scholarship 2024.
Enhancing the Nigerian skills development system’s ability to generate pertinent skills for both the official and informal sectors is the training’s main goal. The World Bank, Gallery of Codes, and the Ministry of Education are supporting the program, which will provide internship and mentorship opportunities for the recipients.
Oscar Anietie Ekponimo, the founder of Gallery of Codes, stated during the orientation and launch event in Abuja that the goal is to close the employment gap and encourage more people to engage in the digital economy. “With the acquisition of skills in emerging technologies, the CyberSchool training program serves as a catalyst for innovation and job readiness and is designed to align with the IDEAS objective.”
He claims that “more than 350 learners have been enrolled in the program to receive training in a variety of digital disciplines, including software engineering, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, data science, and user interface design. This is the inaugural cohort for these various courses, which will take three to six months. Recipients will receive certification from both international and us bodies.
Ekponimo stressed that having strong digital abilities has become more than just an advantage in the quickly changing employment market, even as she urged young people to use their skills to build solutions that will positively impact society. “Those who are adept with digital tools and technologies stand out as highly desirable candidates for employment as industries embrace digital transformation and technology continues to reshape the way we work.”
Improving your job preparedness with digital skills is not only beneficial in today’s digitally native world, but also necessary to future-proof your career and remain competitive in the labor market. “I urge you to seize this exceptional chance for advancement and enhance your skill set to augment your earning potential,” he continued.
During his speech, Dr. Femi Adeloye, the national coordinator of the Ministry of Trade and Investment’s National Talent Export Program, emphasized the significance of the CyberSchool Africa initiative and stated that Nigeria can only be competitive with other nations if it has a highly skilled and competent workforce.
“Countries such as Bangladesh, India, and the Philippines are generating substantial incomes equivalent to our budget, and they do so through outsourcing and talent export. Therefore, we need highly skilled personnel if we hope to be able to take advantage of the markets that they currently hold. I would want to express my excitement for this event and my gratitude to the World Bank and Gallery of Codes for their excellent organization.
Additionally, Onisudumeya Hamilton, lead technical project manager for CyberSchool Africa (Gallery of Codes), stated that the goal of the IDEAS Project is to guarantee that Nigerians have a basic degree of capacity development.
The World Bank is working to make sure that Nigeria has exportable technical capacity by 2025–2030, and it is also working to propel the human capacity development industry. You must train in order to improve the local content since you cannot improve the local content without human potential. The World Bank therefore made the decision to help Nigeria see that objective through to completion. We are helping the federal government achieve the aim of concurrent actualization by means of this initiative.
“There will be a series of technical internships, laboratory sessions, mentorship programs, and immersive projects which they will be working on, and at the end of the day, they will be plugged into jobs,” he stated, following the first and second batch.
Musa Dabra, a cloud engineer, mentor, and tutor at CyberSchool Africa, stated that the training program will be comprehensive and interactive, involving active participation from the recipients.
