The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali-Pantami, has reiterated the need to shift the emphasis on academic degrees without requisite skills in the country.
The minister stated this on Monday during the official launching of the Digital Nigeria portal and mobile App, as part of the implementation our National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy, NDEPS, for a Digital Nigeria.
He said: “We are championing a paradigm shift that lays emphasis on skills, in preference, to merely having degrees without skills. Degrees are only meant to validate skills.
“This is a growing trend across the globe. For instance, China recently started the process of turning 600 of the country’s general universities into skill centres.
“Also, the President of the United States of America signed an Executive Order on the 26th of June 2020 directing the federal government laid emphasis on skills rather than degrees when hiring staff.
“The curriculum vitae of today should have 2 main parts- soft skills and hard skills.”
According to Mr Pantami, the platforms will also empower innovators and entrepreneurs with the skills required to thrive in Nigeria’s emerging digital economy.
Other objectives of the platform, he said, included capacity building in a wide range of areas, such as Digital Literacy, Productivity Tools, Web Development, Cloud Computing, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Database Administration, Networking, Programming, Internet of Things and Soft Skills.
“To create a platform to support a paradigm shift from degrees to skills and bridge the gap between the academia and industry; to promote the development and distribution of instructional materials in electronic format
“And to create an enabling environment for building the capacity of Innovation Driven Enterprises (IDEs) and Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) through e-learning channels,” the minister said.
