The Dean, Faculty of Sciences, Benson Idahosa University, Dr. Osondu Akoma has said that for Universities in Nigeria to improve the quality of learning and churn out good graduates, that lecturers must develop their computer literacy skills and embrace the various digital means of impacting knowledge.

According to him, the infusion of technology into teaching and learning at the university level is an indispensable component for improvement in quality of graduates. He said that education has not remained the same in the last one decade because of technological advancements and because of this, lecturers cannot continue to teach students today the way they were taught and expect competitive output that would cope with today’s trend.

He said: “As teachers, we must upgrade ourselves first as to be able to produce world class graduates. It is not about ASUU asking for allowances and higher pay but actually asking for interactive boards, asking for tools that will make them to be more efficient in delivering their lectures and also having the relevant staff with the capacity to use these facilities. So it is all about those who are involved in this business upgrading themselves to global standards and also those who own these institutions knowing that this is the best operational practice.”

“Looking at it today, the definition of literacy today is “computer literacy.” If you are literate and you cannot use the computer, then you are an illiterate. The computer itself is self-learning, you make a mistake, and it corrects you and prompts you on what next to do. So if somebody at any point in time is not computer literate, the person is an illiterate. This is the tool that will perfect all skills.”

On what his Faculty is doing to cope with the trend, Dr. Akoma mentioned that he has relayed to every lecturer to make sure their instructional material are in electronic format, which is the only way they can develop power point presentation for visual stimulus for students in the class.

When the instructional materials are very clear and readily available to the students for free, you would be sure that they are getting clear fact and information. There is no distortion, and as a matter a fact we have outlawed dictating notes in the Faculty.

“At the departmental level and through the funding of the University, we have been able to procure projectors for each department. We also strengthen staff on what they need to do and a few things we need to drive in our processes,” he added.