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NCDMB Commissions ICT Centres to Boost Technology-Enhanced Learning

Adaobi Rhema Oguejiofor 

The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), as part of deliberate efforts to deepen Internet penetration and digital education in the country, has commissioned three state-of-the-art Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Centres, with dedicated broadband Internet, in three rural secondary schools in Akwa Ibom State.

This was revealed in a statement issued to journalists by the Company’s Corporate Communications department, where it was disclosed that at the benefiting institutions, which are girls high schools, a dedicated block that is fully air-conditioned and well-secured with protectors and reinforced metal windows, serves as the ICT Centre. 

Each of the Centres has 31 units of desktop computers, 31 purpose-built desks and seats, two stools, 25 solar panels, which have already been installed, two 20kVA inverters with 30 pieces of battery, a 20kVA generator, a server unit, a printer, a scanner, a router, a dish for Internet services, and a giant smart screen display board with vast teaching and learning potentials. 

The Executive Secretary of NCDMB, Engr. Simbi Kesiye Wabote, told the Management and staff of the Schools that the mandate of the Board centres on local capacity development and that it has a deliberate policy to make students familiar with digital tools for learning as a way of enhancing their competitiveness as they progress in education. 

He added that the policy is to “catch them young,” which implies stimulating their interest in the area of science and engineering at an early age so that they could pursue careers in those disciplines as they grow up.  

Wabote explained, that the Board is also deliberately promoting science, technology, and mathematics (STEM) education in secondary schools across the country in order to guarantee the development of indigenous manpower to secure the future of the country’s oil and gas sector. 

The NCDMB Boss, who was represented by the Board’s General Manager of Corporate Communication and Zonal Coordination, Mrs. Angela Okoro, said that the ICT Centres would make it possible for the students to have access to the current state of knowledge in all subject areas, as the smart screen and dedicated broadband Internet provide access to the latest publications and research results. 

The Centres also guarantee recognition by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) for teaching of ICT-related subjects and the students would be able to prepare and sit for various external exams.  

The NCDMB Zonal Coordinator for Akwa Ibom and Cross River States, Mr. Uduak Obot, while stating his remarks, expressed that “it is a thing of joy to start a thing and complete it,” recounting how work on the ICT Centres began a few months ago and had thus far been completed. 

Obot thanked the principal and staff of the school, as well as the contractor of the project for their efforts and quality work. He told the students that the oil and gas industry is knowledge-based and that they must be ICT-savvy in order to be sufficiently competitive in the sector. 

According to him, the ICT Centre elevates the standard of the school, and children of the masses now have access to digital tools that only their counterparts in the expensive private schools have been enjoying over time.

Obot further stated that the dedicated broadband Internet that has now been provided will enable students to read any book anywhere in the world, a fact that makes the facility a library of an advanced nature, adding that their studies would no longer be hampered by lack of money to buy books or non-availability of required texts from local bookshops. 

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