TRIBUNE NG
THE Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has concluded plans to deploy a learning platform known as the Blackboard Learning System to provide access to online academic resources in universities and other tertiary education in Nigeria.
Accordingly the Fund has organised a three-day workshop on the theme ‘The Implementation of the Enhanced Blackboard Learning Management System and Train The Trainer Programme’ in Abuja for Directors of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) from various institutions across the country.
The executive secretary of TETFund, Arc. Sonny Echono, speaking at the event, said the platform will provide over two million students and staff of higher education institutions in the country with massive access to online academic resources.
Echono said the workshop, which attracted Directors of ICT from the 253 beneficiary institutions, was part of measures put in place to bridge the digital skills gap in universities, polytechnics and colleges of education in Nigeria.
While saying the intervention would ensure that physical and online modes of teaching and learning are cemented once and for all in tertiary institutions across the country, Echono said Nigerian students would be able to compete favourably with their contemporaries on the global stage with the deployment of the Blackboard platform.
Speaking further, the TETFund boss said the fund is improving its allocation to ICT development in its intervention programmes to ensure that the country meets up with the present digital reality across the globe.
“Prior to 2022, our ICT Support Intervention was N15 million for universities and N7.5 million for polytechnics and Colleges of Education. We took bold steps to increase this intervention to N100 million for universities and N50 million for polytechnics and Colleges of Education,-65” he said
