ByEmmanuel Elebeke

The journey of IT training partnership between New Horizons and Covenant University, which started four years ago have paid off after all.

This follows the certificate presentation ceremony organized last week by the school, in which 283 students of the university became certified in CISCO Certified Network Associate, CCNA; CISCO Certified Network Professional, CCNP; Project Management; EC Council Customer Relationship Management, CRM and Web Multimedia.

The management of the institution had after sealing the partnership deal with New Horizons in 2007, mandatorily integrated all her students into the international certification oriented courses, irrespective of their discipline to better equip them for the challenges ahead.

In her welcome remarks, the Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof. Aize Obayan said the feat being celebrated and the subsequent presentation of the international certificates to the 283 gallant students of the institution was an affirmation of the entrepreneurial drive of the university to refocus Nigeria education system.

As an ICT driven institution, Prof. Obayan said the university is on a revolution mission aimed at bringing the desired change and transformation of Nigeria education system to bare. A change, she said can place Nigerian university graduates shoulder above their peers at the global arena.

With these certification, the VC said that the graduands are now better equipped and prepared to move into the world and drive enterprises for themselves and their alma matter, especially now they are going into the over saturated labour market.

“For us in Covenant University, we are committed in raising the bar for a betterment and future of Nigerian education system. The solution we seek for Nigeria education system is right here with us, and now we can see that the beautiful ones are here in ICT revolution, ready to give India and China a fight for their edge in ICT advancement,” she stated.

Prof. Obayan further described the feat attained by the students as the product of the vision of the school and the beginning of a silent revolution going on in Nigeria.

As a consequence of this development, she said that Nigeria would soon outsourcing IT professionals to the rest of the world, adding that ICT has become a common denominator to the world as a global village.

While pointing the way forward for Nigeria to move advance in technology, Obayan noted that skills and ICT certification have long been given a centre stage in Asia and Europe, due to the crucial role it is playing in re_setting the pace of global economic growth, pointing out that it is not just the certificate that matters to the students but the practicals that validate it.

She however, urged Nigerian to brace up for the challenge of building capacity in the youths sine the future belong to them.

“India and China have had the edge over us because of their level of advancement in ICT. Now, it is our turn to get to the centre stage. We must begin now to invest on capacity building in our youths and accord it the priority place it deserves because it is an injunction into a future without boundaries,” she declared.

In his remarks, the managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of New Horizons, Mr. Tim Akano said that the importance of ICT in 21st century cannot be overemphasized and congratulated the students for their resilient and hard work.

He said ICT should be taken more serious now than ever before, as it has proved to be the highest paid profession in the world.

He recalled that it took him 18 months to convince the management of the university sign the partnership agreement, but expressed satisfaction that the effort finally yielded positive result.

According to him, ICT is the only thing peculiar to 21st century and for people to maximize the benefits, attention must be focused on it, saying that it is not the strongest animal or the most intelligent one that will survive in this century but the one adaptive to the change ICT provided.

He further warned the students not to take ICT with levity, particularly now the rest of the century is going to be dominated by IT.

“Make it point of duty to acquire more IT skills before you leave school and burry yourselves in understanding it so that you can last on the job and be good ambassadors of your school,” he admonished the students,” he admonished and used the medium to announce the award of scholarship to the most outstanding and top three recipients of the certificates worth over N400,000.

Akano said the gesture was his own way of encouraging the students to be at their best in acquisition of IT knowledge.

Also speaking at the occasion, the CISCO area academy manager for West and Central Africa, Mr. Chinedu Dibor expressed satisfaction with the achievement of the students within the stated period. He stressed the need for deeper penetration of ICT into all nooks and crannies of Nigeria and charged the celebrants to look beyond classroom lecture and go all out to embrace ICT to enable them compete favourably with their counterparts in other parts of the world.

He also advised the students not to seek white cola jobs in foreign but look within Nigeria

and see the golden opportunities being provided by ICT.

Dibor however, promised to use the ongoing CISCO Academy drive across Africa to deepen ICT

awareness in Nigeria by taking the academy to rural and unserved localities in the country.

Highlight of the event was the presentation of certificates to the deserving students and presentation of awards of excellence to some Nigeria ICT practitioners. They include: the MD of New Horizons, Mr. Tim Akano; Group Managing Director of Omatek Computers, Engr. Florence Seriki; Executive Vice Chairman of 21st Century Technology Limited, Mr. Wale Ajusebutu; Managing Director of Softcom Imagio limited, Mr. Yomi Adedeji and Managing Director of e_Transact limited, Valentine Obi.

Commenting on the award, Prof. Abayan described award as a platform to showcase Nigeria based ICT industries and to prove that Nigeria and indeed Africa have ICT giants,

who will manege the graduates being produced by the universities.