The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Prof. Benjamin Chukwuma Ozumba has called on the Federal Government to enact a national policy that would ensure that every student in Nigerian owned a laptop computer.

Ozumba made the call during a chat with newsmen at the recently concluded symposium on “Sustainability Science in the advent of Agenda 2030” organised by UNESCO International Centre for Biotechnology, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Prof Ozumba lamented that although Nigerian universities produce very clever graduates, many of them are deemed unemployable because of deficiencies in basic skills especially in the area of Information and communication technology.

He explained that a national policy that would ensure that every student acquired a laptop, either funded as a constituency project, or through soft financial package, would help address the ICT skill gap among Nigerian-trained graduates.

“Rwanda, through its ‘ICT in Education Policy’ has a national policy of one laptop per child; I don’t think Rwanda is richer than Nigeria,” he said.

The Vice-Chancellor said his administration had taken steps to address the ICT challenge by ensuring that every student admitted into the University of Nigeria for the 2015/2016 session is given a laptop computer.

Payment for the laptop is spread across three academic sessions with the beneficiaries paying the sum of N25,000 per session.

“This initiative will afford students the opportunity to access and revise lecture modules at the comfort of their rooms and hostels without going through the rigours of congested classrooms and running from one point to the other which impedes on proper learning and assimilation,” he said

The Vice-Chancellor noted that the laptop initiative would enable students of the University of Nigeria benefit from IT training program which the University had arranged with IBM, Microsoft and HP.

On maintenance measures for the laptop, Prof Ozumba said a staff of HP from south-Africa has trained 14 staff of the University on HP hardware to support the products.

The Vice-Chancellor said he was pained by the knowledge that no Nigerian University was ranked among the world’s best 100 universities; stating that his administration was determined to include the University of Nigeria among the acclaimed universities in the world.

•Photo shows UNN VC, Prof Ozumba.

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