Huawei Technologies has continued to ensure that Nigerian students registered under its Authorised Information and Network Academy are trained in core ICT skills in the face of the Covid19 pandemic.
The company moved its classes online, engaging hundreds of students across the country on their computer screens from the comfort of their homes.
The Huawei Authorised Information and Network Academy (HAINA) in collaboration with more than 70 universities in Nigeria was established to train students for free in the latest internationally relevant ICT skills in subjects such as Networks, Cloud Computing and Big Data. As at today, over10,000 Nigerian students have benefitted and certified.
In a recent interactive session with some of the teachers and students of the academy, they gave insights into the structure of the academy’s online training program and its impact.
Head of IT Technical Support Unit, Kastina State Institute of Technology and Management, Mr. Lawal Ahmad Alassan, who is also a Huawei Academy Instructor in Routing, Switching, Storage and Security said his first batch of online classes held from the 10th till the 15th of May 2020 and he had between 75 to 50 students from different educational institutions from all over Nigeria. He said classes were split into two classes of 40 each. The training was structured for three hours daily with breaks in between. The entire course was broken down into four and five topics daily.
Speaking about his experience teaching the students online, he said “It was a wonderful experience coming from a virtual classroom organised by Huawei. The students were so overwhelmed and as we speak now we have over 250 students waiting to be trained and still making enquiries and application for training. To some of the students it was a new experience and they never thought they could achieve such training process while staying at home.”
Excited about the regular participation of the students, he said: “The online training has made instructors and the students bother less about the lockdown because we have been made to acquire knowledge through Huawei’s training platform in the most incredible manner. With these trainings, the ICT industry in Nigeria will grow faster.”
According to Alassan, “If our education sector could include virtual classes in our educational platform, it will go a long way in solving most of our educational challenges in Nigeria. Huawei has made the stay at home caused by the COVID-19 a blessing in disguise.”
Another Huawei Academy Instructor from the University of Port Harcourt, who teaches Programming, Algorithms, Data Structures and Artificial Intelligence said he also held his classes from the 10th till the 15th of May 2020 with over 100 students from various location in Nigeria from Port Harcourt, Abuja, Lagos, Enugu, Niger, Anambra, Delta, among other states.
