The Federal Government of Nigeria has partnered with Coursera, a global online digital skills acquisition platform, to empower 24,000 Nigerians with digital and developer skills in a variety of sectors over a three-year period as part of its commitment to boost the country's digital capacity.
This was announced on Wednesday in a statement from the Minister of Communications & Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami), which was signed by his spokesperson, Uwa Suleiman.
On Wednesday, October 19, 2022, the minister, speaking on President Muhammadu Buhari's behalf, proclaimed the training open.
He stated, “we are championing a paradigm shift of prioritizing hard, soft and social skills over theory and this collaboration will go a long way in supporting this shift.
According to Pantami, Coursera is one of the world’s top online learning platforms hosting thousands of courses for some of the best universities and companies, and has remained at the forefront of providing the global society with the education and resources it needs to build and maintain digital systems.
Pantami also reiterated government’s commitment to ensure that the nation’s citizenry is digitally empowered and properly positioned for the fourth industrial revolution.
“The recent Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) entered into, with Microsoft to train five million Nigerians in various fields of technology, is part of government’s efforts to fulfill the requirements for digital transformation as laid down in the Nigeria Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) document.”
While expressing delight over the partnership, the minister called on Coursera to expand its presence in Nigeria and especially in the academia where it already has an existing partnership with Covenant University.
“Coursera is in partnership with Covenant University which is one of the best private universities in Nigeria based on their annual rankings and publications which I have keenly observed.
“I have no doubt that this partnership has had a huge impact on the institution’s excellent standing. I therefore request that Coursera engages more academic institutions, at least one, in each geo-political zone and bring their expertise to bear within the identified environments.”
The minister noted that the Federal Government of Nigeria, through the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, is spearheading this collaboration under the auspices of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).