By Stellamaries Amuwa, Abuja
The Committee of Directors of ICT of Nigerian Tertiary Institutions (COMDICT-NTI), is making efforts to ramp up the level of Information Communication Technology (ICT) adoption and compliance in Nigerian public tertiary institutions towards delivering quality education, research and achieving digital economic development in Nigeria.
To achieve this, the Committee will on November 23, 2023 inaugurate its new Executive Council to lead other members from over 247 public tertiary institutions in the country, spanning universities, colleges of education and polytechnics owned by the State and Federal governments.
A statement signed on Thursday by the Chairman of the COMDICT-NTI, Daniel Inusa Yakmut, said, the association is a non-trade union association, committed to the development of ICT infrastructure and fostering the use of digital platforms in the education sector.
Highlighting the objectives of the Committee, Yakmut said: “We want to institutionalize the use of technology in our schools, embedding technology in all the aspects of operations of the institutions.
We want to standardize the position of directors of ICT in our tertiary institutions because if a director is not serving for two to four years in the office, instability of appointments and policies makes it difficult to achieve high levels of ICT adoption and compliance in our schools.”
The Chairman noted that, “Nigerian Tertiary Institutions (NTIs) have suffered from the supply of fake ICT equipment because of poor control and oversight. We are not going to control how contracts are awarded but we are going to advise Management Boards and Councils of Tertiary Institutions (TIs) so as to ensure that standards are met. We will make sure that people who do business with the institutions are professionals.
According to him, “We are also partners and members of the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) and the Computer Professionals Registration Council of Nigeria (CPN). We are also carrying the burden to ensure that standards are observed in the institutions.
“We want to cement the relationship between funding partners such as the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, NITDA, NCC, Galaxy Backbone, TETFUND and the tertiary institutions towards prioritizing funding of ICT projects. In the year 2015, TETFUND formally enlisted ICT as one of its areas of annual intervention in the institutions. We are very happy that the funding has improved from N10 million to N100 million over time.
“We want to work closely with these funding partners by telling them exactly what our institution’s ICT needs are. Sometimes they intervene, but not really what we would have preferred.”
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