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IT
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| HiiT
States Mission In IT Education |
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Leading IT training
institute, Hands-on Institute of Information Technology (HiiT) has
said that it was determined to facilitate the delivery of the best
value for time and money utilitarian education at competitive rewards
to all stakeholders in the IT and Education industry. Chief Executive
Officer of the institute, Kayode Shobajo |
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who
stated this at a media briefing recently remarked that the institute
was poised to provide the best value for IT
and professional business education in the most customer- friendly
manner.He said that in providing education to all relevant markets,
the institution aims to achieve so many things including being the
numero uno in IT education in West Africa before December 2009.
According to Shobajo, “we aim at providing the most result-oriented
and students' friendly but customized to local peculiarities, courseware
for all courses; to provide administrative processes and procedures
that are most efficient and effective to stakeholders in the most-friendly
manner”.
He stated that with centers in Kano and Ikeja, the institute plans
to open additional three branches across the country before the
first quarter of next year adding that the school has made tremendous
impact in IT education in its one decade of existence.
“Within the ten years of our establishment, HiiT has graduated
more than 15,000 students. The excellent and hands-on nature of
the training at HiiT is underlined by the fact that it has today
produced the first and only Java master in Nigeria.”
Shobajo noted that despite these achievements, the institute has
realized the need to work with other stakeholders, with the same
vision, in order to accomplish its setout mission.
Meanwhile, the institute has awarded scholarship grants to Secondary
school students in Lagos as part of efforts to contribute to the
development of IT education in Nigeria.
Chief Executive Officer of the institute, Kayode Shobajo who stated
that the scholarship awards would offer students the opportunity
to register for any course of their choice at the world class institute
said, “the gesture is part of activities lined up by HiiT
to mark its 10th anniversary celebration as well as to recognize
and reward the students' good performance in their last examination.”
The CEO said IT training goes beyond the core subjects available
in schools especially as most schools in the country are not well
equipped to offer the IT training that the students need to compete
in today's digital society.
“The goal of HiiT institute is to empower youths in the country
with the best IT and professional business certification training
through the use of up to date software and programmes at affordable
prices.”
Shobajo disclosed that plans were underway to extend the scholarship
scheme to tertiary institutions in the country. |
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| In
Pursuit Of New Horizons In IT |
| Managing
Director of New Horizons Computer Learning Centre, Tim Akano tells
ROMMY IMAH, SHOLA OGUNSANLU and IFEANYI OSUEKE how the institute has
been contributing to the manpower development of the ICT sector in
Nigeria. |
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The challenge
of liberalization
The eventual liberalization of Nigeria's Communications sector in
year 2000 brought with it, manpower challenges in the Information
and Communications Technology industry. Before then, ICT applications
in private and public businesses were slowly but gradually taking
roots even as opportunities that abound in this key sector of the
global economy were underestimated.
The few who understood the invaluable role of ICT in the day to day
running of private and public businesses were not reluctant at agreeing
that this key sector can act as catalyst for change for individuals
and governments. Today therefore, several institutions have sprang
up to bridge this manpower gap by offering ICT trainings to all segments
of the Nigerian society including primary school pupils.
Only last year, Nigeria's Federal Government came up with the Computer
for All Nigerians initiative (CANi), a project aimed at making the
acquisition of computer systems easier and affordable. This is expected
to complement the goals of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative
being driven by Prof. Negroponte. Other initiatives like the Classmate
PC being powered by globally renowned chip maker, Intel are all aimed
at growing ICT knowledge in the country.
Passion
One institution that has taken up the challenge to ensure that Nigerians
are keeping pace with developments in the Information and Communications
Technology world is the New Horizons Computer Learning Centre. The
institution's managing director, Tim 'Kayode Akano has been speaking
about his mission and that of his school in the onerous task of driving
Nigeria to a knowledge- based economy insisting that passion is the
driving force.
“I have a personal mission in IT; I see myself as an IT evangelist
for Nigeria. This did not come to me as a surprise. I have passion
for this country; I get touched when I see the army of unemployed
youths hanging around the streets. I feel touched when I see the list
of great people in the world and Nigeria is missing conspicuously.
I feel touched by the level of naked poverty afflicting majority of
Nigerians.” |
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| Moved
by this disturbing scenario, Akano resigned his appointment
with multinational Coca Cola about two years ago to preach the
gospel of IT. “Nigerians must be IT literate”, he
seemed to have said that time. New Horizons Computer Learning
Centre, a subsidiary of New Horizons Worldwide Inc., the largest
independent IT training concern |
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worldwide
was the platform on which this task must be accomplished.
“I teamed up with other notable Nigerians to actually see what
we can do to reduce poverty in this country, to reduce under-development
and wastages of human beings. We were convinced that the only way
forward for this country having lost out in the agrarian revolution
of the seventeenth century, having lost out in the industrial revolution
of the nineteenth century, the only window of opportunity left for
any country to actually make any progress is in the arena of IT”,
he informs.
Akano says it was because of his team's desire to launch Nigeria into
the comity of knowledge-based economies of the world that it decided
to partner with the best IT training institute in the world. New Horizons
is acclaimed globally to be the foremost IT training firm according
to the International Data Corporation (IDC) statistics released in
2006. The school has presence in 60 countries of the world, over 4000
courses on IT and business skill. It took Akano and his 'dream team'
about three years to convince the U.S headquartered institute to accept
this partnership.
The New Horizons Nigeria chief executive states that following a survey
carried out by his team at inception, it discovered that those making
waves in the world of IT today like Bill Gates, Michael Dell and even
the Google brothers started at tender ages. The team felt it could
train Nigerians that could surpass such records.
“It is this passion that led to all the major partnerships we
are having today with tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Before we
came in, we realized that all the other major IT training centers
in Nigeria concentrated on training the corporate world. We felt that
we are not in this business solely for money sake; we see ourselves
as evangelists in this business, those who are leading a revolution
in the industry.”
Operation 'catch them young'
New Horizons' incursion into Nigerian universities started about two
years ago when it signed a MoU with Babcock University. Just about
a year and half it entered into this partnership, seven other universities
have come on stream and they are today partnering with New Horizons
to impart on their students the latest in IT education. Little wonder
some Nigerian universities have today integrated in their curriculums,
international ICT certifications.
“The University of Ibadan and the Lagos State University are
some of the universities that have already integrated international
ICT certifications in their various curriculums. We equally took the
trainings to Secondary and Primary Schools so as to catch them young.
This explains the reason why we are having such number of partnerships
in the country today.” |
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| If catching
them young is the mission then, the effort may have started
yielding fruits. Early this year, the institute showcased two
students of Doregos International School, Rilwanu and Davidson
who both learnt how to couple a PC system under the tutelage
of New Horizons Computer Learning Centre. “The first time
we saw them, we saw future Michael Dell and Bill Gates on their
faces. We decided to train them without collecting a kobo from
either the parents or their |
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school.
We only wanted to prove that when it comes to intellectual capacity,
Nigerians, given theright information, given the right knowledge could
equally compete and surpass any of their counterparts anywhere in
the world.” Akano believes that Nigeria is blessed but that
what is lacking in the country, is proper harnessing of both material
and human resources and therefore, calls for both public and private
involvement in harnessing the country's potentials.
Courses, affordability and pricing
New Horizons Computer Learning Centre according to Akano is well equipped
to train its students on anything IT as well as business skill. From
software development to hardware engineering, Akano says New Horizons
has what it takes to give Nigerians the best of IT education. “We
run courses on software engineering, hardware engineering and recently
became an Oracle Certified Trainer. We run courses on Oracle, Microsoft,
Cisco and others.
“Besides, we have relationships with all major IT vendors in
the world. We've also signed a partnership agreement with EC Council.
We hope to start our MBA programme in this country come September,
this year; we shall be commencing with two masters- Master of Security
Sciences (MSS) and MBA in e-Business.”
He says that both courses are the hottest sought after skills in the
world today expressing New Horizons' readiness to position Nigeria
as a beneficiary of current globalization efforts.
“Everybody is talking about e-business today and this requires
certain skills; and we realize that we don't have enough of those
skills in Nigeria. So, the only way we can go about it is to actually
partner with the best in the world in terms of e-Commerce, and EC
Council is the best in this area. We are their major partners in Nigeria
and are hopeful that in the next two to three years, this partnership
would have been able to produce professionals with adequate skill
as far as e-Business is concerned.”
Akano does not see price as impediment to acquiring basic IT knowledge
at New Horizons. He maintains that the institute is not unaware of
the poverty level and the per capita income of the average Nigerian
and therefore, subsidizes whatever they charge students.“Everything
we are doing in Nigeria, we have the backing of New Horizons worldwide
to actually run it at a price that will be affordable to people. We
subsidize the training we give to schools in this country by as much
as 50 per cent because if we charge them the market price, we realize
that they are not going to afford it.”
Partnership with Government and Corporate social responsibility
The task of bridging the digital divide some people argue should be
a public-private partnership. It is expected that for a sustainable
ICT development, the need for Government to partner with stakeholders
is most imperative. That may perhaps, explain why the management of
New Horizons Nigeria has been exploring partnership options with some
Government agencies including the National Universities Commission
(NUC) and the Federal Ministry of Education to help build IT professionals
in Nigeria.
“It is interesting to note that the Federal Government has opened
up to the reality of the necessity of Information Technology skill
for every of their staff. They brought their staff here the other
time for training. The Government has indeed woken up to the reality
of IT skill acquisition and we are happy about this development.”
Akano claims that his institution has never shied away from giving
back to the people by way of corporate social responsibility. Towards
this end, the institution recently doled out N500, 000 for several
schools in Lagos for their end-of-year activities. In addition to
this, the students that will emerge victorious at the sporting events,
will be trained free of charge at New Horizons Institute.
“In the last two years, we have trained over 100 Nigerians here
free of charge; and in most cases these trainings run into hundreds
of thousands of naira, yet we give them free. So, when you talk about
social responsibility in the area we know best, which is IT; we've
actually sunk a lot of money. We have indeed sunk over N10 million
in the last two years to actually fast-forward the so much desired
information technology revolution in this country.”
Growing IT education in Nigeria
The New Horizons Nigeria chief executive is of the opinion that what
would facilitate the development of IT professionals in the country
is investment on Research and Development activities. Technologically
advanced countries according to Akano were able to get to where they
are today because they invested heavily on Research and Development.
“The more the resources a country puts into research and IT,
the more the development, the more the prosperity in that country.”
He advises that for the country to make any meaningful impact in the
effort at leapfrogging its development, a chunk of the country's earnings
should be spent on IT development as this is where the future lies.
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| Why
LASU Is building ICT CENTRES - Prof.
Hussain |
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[Lagos
State University, Ojo is pioneering what could pass as an ICT
revolution in Nigeria's public universities. Recently, the university's
Vice Chancellor, Professor Lateef Akani Hussain told journalists
why the institution is on this mission.ROMMY IMAH was there.
Excerpt…] |
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Can you
briefly tell us about the LASU ICT Centre?
This is a modern world; and like someone mentioned, you don't
go about parading papers upon papers. Everything is now done
in the Internet. Of course, before you do anything in the
Internet, you must have basic knowledge of computer programmes;
and there is need for you to have a portal. Somebody would
have to write the instruction and this can cost millions.
In LASU, we decided to adopt what I can call the Indian approach-
what we are unable to write, we shall not use. We have therefore;
put all our students together to write all these software
so that if you look at LASU website now, you find out that
they can now register for the course online. You can now pay
online as well as get your results online. It is interesting
to note that our students wrote all those programmes, most
of them in their third or fourth year of Engineering. We have
not bought any software from anybody.
Was the ICT Centre built in partnership with any organization?
The Lagos State University, using internally generated resources,
solely built everything you see there.
What did it cost you to build this Centre?
What we do is that we've been acquiring 10-15 computers every
week, I wouldn't know for how many months now. It did not
just happen one day; it is something that you build up. Just
like little drops make the ocean; that has been our own case
here.
How long have you presided here as Vice Chancellor, and when
you eventually leave, what would you like to leave as legacy?
By October 2007, I will be two years here as VC. I hope to
leave behind a university that will be the envy of others
in every sense of the word. And for it to be a proper university,
you have a tripod- the quality of the students, the quality
of the teachers and the quality of the administrative and
support staff. So, in one word, all of these must be filled
on merit; you don't have to know anybody, and that has to
come from our own personal experience.
What I want to do is that from now on, the ordinary person,
the son of the farmer or the daughter of the market woman
should be given opportunity to go as far as possible without
being encumbered with the names behind him or her. Any system
that does not work for the ordinary man is a useless system;
it's bound to fail.
What kind of partnership did you sign with New Horizons?
Our idea was to have a cyber café at our Epe campus
but we don't have money. And then, we considered a BOT (Build,
Operate and Transfer), which many companies applied for; many
of them lobbied rather than presenting the real thing. I asked
my team to go and conduct the interview and bring its report.
New Horizons got there on merit. It now occurred to us to
ask: why not put all these things in the curriculum of our
Engineering syllabus? As an Engineering student, you need
to know what is happening in the world of IT because this
is where the future lies. By the time you have taken your
B.Sc. Eng., nothing stops you from having a Microsoft or Oracle
certification.
About three years ago, India made $3billion from software.
The question is: why can't we do it in Nigeria? What we are
doing here is that in the next four to five years, any Engineering
graduate from LASU should be able to be on his own because
he is IT compliant.
What's the financial implication of the partnership
with New Horizons on the students?
Some of the students have been writing me about that; usually,
you listen to all complaints then you find a way of resolving
them. What we do here now is that if you get 4.0 out of 5.0,
you automatically become a university scholar in LASU; you
don't pay school fees again till you leave school. We will
ameliorate whatever charges this new partnership will attract;
we will not make it difficult for them. But the truth is that
if you want to make the students more responsible, you don't
make it completely free because whatever that is free is not
good.
Is the partnership still on BOT?
BOT is there on its own; what we did is that we extended it.
Our students will be trained there but we will monitor the
training. The contract is indefinite; it is for the future.
What plans do you have for the satellite campuses?
We don't regard any campus as external or satellite; any part-time
student is the same like a full-time student. Certificates
from the satellite campuses will be the same as the ones from
the main campus. We do not discriminate any more now. It is
just coming together and that's the essence of education.
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Franchiseworld,
Hiit Institute excite Forex Training Participants |
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The maiden edition of the online
Forex-trading seminar organized by Franchworld Limited in association
with HiiT Institute took place recently with participants from
different parts of the country having the opportunity to feel
the practical aspect of online Forex trading, by making use
of the online demo to prepare them for the live Forex trading.
According to some of the participants, the seminar tagged Live-On-Internet,
opened their eyes to how Forex-trading works, courtesy adequate
facilities put in place by HiiT Institute for both theory and
practical aspect of the training.
Sir John Etsegbe, said he has visited other training Institutes
that provide Forex training, but facilities for the practical
were not there adding that what he met at HiiT Institute was
beyond his expectation.
“The workshop materials were
beyond my expectations, Wale and Tunde were exceptional; all
the ladies were friendly, Kayode was a fantastic motivator who
has a lot to offer the country, I know I got beyond what I wanted”,
he enthused.
Muyibat Egbeyemi, FCA, a participant believes that one may not
get the whole idea of online Forex trading unless the person
participates adding that she has started dreaming of how to
become rich as online Forex trading has become a way of doing
something else apart from Accounting/Banking.
They described Online Forex trading as a tool that can take
Nigerian youths off the street as area boys and prostitutes,
stating further that, it is an empowerment business that the
young generation can benefit from, rather than using the Internet
as a tool for fraudulent acts.
The participants expressed gratitude to the management of Franchworld
Limited and HiiT Institute for organising a complete and comprehensive
seminar on online Forex trading and promised to improve on what
they have learnt. |
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| School
Sponsors Emotional Intelligence Seminar |
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New Horizons the worlds foremost
IT Training Institution recently sponsored a seminar on Emotional
Intelligence for top Human Resource Managers. The seminar
was organized to assist HR Managers with the latest principles
and techniques in managing people in the world.
Emotional Intelligence is a concept originated by Daniel Goleman-The
co-chairman of the Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations,
which is based at Rutgers University's Graduate School of
Applied Psychology in Piscataway, New Jersey with a view towards
providing far reaching insight to top managers of organizations
on how to lead their companies to achieve phenomenal results
for the stakeholders.
Emotional Intelligence, which is the ability to manage oneself
and build effective relationship with others, consists of
four fundamental capabilities: Self-Awareness, Self-Management,
Social Awareness and Social Skill. Each capability, in turn
is composed of specific sets of competences.
Self- Awareness is further broken down to Emotional Self Awareness,
Accurate Self Assessment and Self Confidence; Self Management
consists of the following components- Self Control, Trustworthiness,
Conscientiousness, Adaptability, Achievement Orientation,
Initiative.
Social Awareness includes-Empathy, Organizational Awareness,
Service Orientation; while Social Skills is further divided
into Visionary Leadership, Influence, Developing others, Communication,
Conflict Management, Building Bonds and Team Work & Collaboration.
Successful leaders around the world who command the respect
of their staff as well as improve the profitability of their
companies have been known to exhibit all of the four key characteristics
indicated above.
Facilitator and faculty member at New Horizons, Sonny Osawota
said the skills of Emotional Intelligence can be learnt and
that Human Resource Personnel should be the first to know
about it as well as be in the best position to help their
staff acquire similar skills so as to improve the total performance
of staff within their organization.
Managing Director of New Horizons, Tim Akano said the institution
has more than 800 courses in its Business Training portfolio
in Management Skills, Industrial skills, Finance, Human Resources,
Sales etc. adding that the company came into the Nigerian
market with a strategy of providing the best services in the
training industry and now that they had excelled in ICT Training,
it was time to do like wise with Business Skill Training.
Participants were drawn from First Bank, FCMB, Insight, Fidelity
Bank, Tractor & Equipment, Interswitch, WAPCO etc and
they were all united in saying that the seminar was satisfactory
and that Emotional Intelligence was a skill that their staff
needs to develop to help raise the performance of their organizations.
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