The Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) on Wednesday said that schools should expose students to the technology world to make a difference among their contemporaries.
The NCS’s Education Committee Chairman, Mr Rogba Adeoye, gave the advice on Wednesday in Lagos in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
Adeoye said that the youth needed technological empowerment for the overall economic growth and social development of the country.
“The manpower of the country which comprises mostly the youth needs to be at par with others in the world technology wise.
“In the country, we have only persons who want to make use of the computer system and not people who will be programmers.
“This is why NCS and the country at large need to develop manpower along that line,’’ he said.
Adeoye said that in working to assist the country’s technological growth, the NCS would be training one million youths to be good programmers.
According to him, in the employment market there are short supplies of programmers.
He added that programming was a foreign exchange earner and developing an army of that magnitude would have a good spill over.
Adeoye said the NCS had initiated National Information Technology Wizkids Competition to encourage and expose the youth to IT related knowledge at their early stage.
He said that the competition was focused on secondary school students who would be rewarded for their efforts.
“The competition is open to students in Private and Public Secondary Schools. It is Nigeria’s only truly national information technology competition at this level of education.
“NCS considers the competition as a development process and encouragement of excellence among secondary school students nationwide, who are the future leaders.
“The student is the developer, architect and creator of the future. There is the need to empower him for the future toward a great digital Nigeria,’’ he said. (NAN)
