Scaling Up Digital Literacy among Nigerian Youths

Rebecca Ejifoma

A nongovernmental organisation, Digify Africa, has given youths in Lagos an immense digital scale up training to meet up with the digital revolution.

This was the aim at the one-day collaborative workshop by Digify Africa with Facebook on the theme, ‘Taking the Lead in the Developmental Drive to Bring ICT to the Fore in the Formal and Informal Sector’ held in Lagos.

The Regional Philanthropist, Marcom Coordinator Microsoft (MEA), Mr. Yemi Orimolade described the basis of digital literacy as using and operating the computer.

Orimolade said the revolution of digital literacy would bring about the analogy of the typewriter and the computer. “First, it was typewriter, and then the computer came into existence and people adjusted. Now, people have to upscale, learn new skills, and unlearn to become relevant in the future”.

In order to move with the speed of digital technology, the Marcom Coordinator described the workshop as one to create awareness for them to start learning the right skills and to ensure they pass on the knowledge to everyone.

Meanwhile, the Director of Digify Nigeria, Florence Olumodimu, having interacted with and nurtured over 5,000 Nigerian graduates between 2016 and 2019, bemoaned the loud gap between classroom and fields.

Her words: “It is apparent that there is a major gap between what the majority is learning at the University and the skills required to flourish in the industry.”

For Olumodimu, Digify Africa has been able to deliver digital and soft skills required for the future work.

“We activate Africa’s most valuable resources – the young people – as a solution to one of its critical challenges: youth unemployment. My favorite is dimensioning the skills needed to deliver to our youths and how we can scale this up to reach the greater population for them to thrive in industry,” she noted.

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