‘Digital literacy will enhance productivity in Nigeria’s public sector’

He stated this recently during a facility tour of Nigeria’s Digital Bridge Institute (DBI) in Abuja. DBI is the training arm of the nation’s telecom regulator, Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC.
 
The Permanent Secretary stressed that he intentionally brought the Directors of the Ministry to enable them to see the kind of training and digital literacy they would require for the staff of the Ministry of Communications and to collaborate with DBI.

According to him, deploying emerging technologies in Information Communications Technology (ICT) is one sure way of enhancing productivity, transparency, and effectiveness in the Nigerian public service. He stressed that to be able to effectively deploy these technologies; public servants must be trained and re-trained on digital literacy skills.
 
“I find this place actually good that is why I want the management team to see the facilities in order to send their staff for training in the Institute”, he stated. He, therefore, urged his Directors and the management of the DBI to collaborate on appropriate training needs for the staff of the Ministry.

The Acting Administrator of DBI, Mrs. Viola Askia-Usoro, while explaining the mandate of the Institute said: “As the foremost ICT institution in Nigeria and the biggest, we cannot only concentrate on capacity building we must push for ICT penetration from the aspect of policy development and implementation.” She canvassed that computer literacy at the point of employment for every civil servant should be changed to digital literacy.

“If you ask one if he/she is computer literate the person will respond in the affirmative but when you ask the person to type a document you’ll probably notice the person’s challenge. But if it is digital literacy which is measurable, bench marking can be done in this regard because you’ll see evidence of the person’s skills.

“If we change the entry point for every MDA from computer literacy to digital literacy, you’ll see that people will be forced to acquire proper digital literacy skill and the quality of people going into the civil service will be better in terms of their ability to use digital skills in their offices. “, she said.