Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University has partnered Huawei, Chinese technology giant to boost ICT related fields in the university.
Professor Muhammad Abdulazeez, the Vice Chancellor of the University while stated this on Tuesday when he hosted representatives of the Chinese company who were in the University to donate IT equipment.
Professor Abdulazeez said ATBU will not be left behind in the haze of platform agnosticism shaping the digital economy in the world.
He said the partnership has embolden the University’s resolve to establish a faculty of computing in addition to the existing Computer Science program aimed at boosting the ICT competence of the university beginning from the next academic session,
The Vice Chancellor disclosed that the handing over of the donated lab equipment by Huawei Technology will the students of the university boost their ICT skills and acquire Huawei certification.
“Even before we get the facilities, we map out strategies on how to go about the new initiative.
Computer science is mostly theoretical and too generic, and now we got the facilities for practice which were lacking for many years because we so much emphasized on certification to just have certificate, actually what we focus now is skills acquisition.”
The University Don said the move was part of ATBU’s resolve not to be left behind in the era of digital economy and other digitization processes.He said with support from Huawei Technology company which has established an ICT Academy in ATBU, the university will now enhance its ICT competences.
“Our target is to train all our students, particularly students from the departments of computer science, engineering, mechatronics and so on.
The VC said Huawei certification will give room for ATBU students to compete globally with their peers around the world.
Earlier in his remark, Kenneth Igwe ,country Training Manager of Huawei while presenting the laboratory equipment to the university, said that his organization has trained over 10,000 students and 4000 professional instructors across the country.
He said the company is collaborating with Nigerian universities with the sole aim of promoting digital connectivity to enhance research and development studies.
Igwe assured that the company will equip the ICT department of ATBU just as it has done in other universities across the country, adding that ATBU has been identified as the digital center of excellence in the Northeast sub-region.
