Involving girls in ICT will advance Nigeria’s dev’t – Plan

The Country Director of Plan International, Charles Usie, has called for the participation of more girls in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) careers to foster a more dynamic technology sector and enhance innovation and productivity.

“We can hardly survive in today’s world without technology. In Nigeria, 50 per cent of our population is female and involving them in ICT will help to advance the country’s development,” he said.

Usie, represented by the Communication Advisor of the organisation, Yunus Abdulhamid, made the call in Abuja at an event to mark the 2022 Girls in ICT Day, recently. 

He said the event, which featured debate and quiz competitions amongst schools in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) with the topic, ‘Is Technology a Critical Component of the Education of Students today?’ would spur conversation of girls in ICT.

“Data indicates fewer females in ICT and science generally. Also, as you progress, more girls drop out from ICT/science-related courses. 

“In today’s world, more women are found in all human endeavours like the pilots, engineers, architects, medical doctors, bankers and many more,” he said.

While noting that for Nigeria to advance in what it does, there is need for more participation of girls in ICT in today’s world, he said 50 per cent of the country’s population is female, hence the need for the government to pay critical attention to the girl child in the area of technology.

“Any society that looks down on this group of people will definitely fail. So, we are saying that females must imbibe technology to really grow our country.

“At Plan International, we focus on adolescent girls. This does not mean the boys are not important, they are because, in our programmes for girls, we also carry the boys along,” he said.

The project coordinator, Plan International, Mrs Mary Mbukpa, called for monitoring of devices used by children from home.

Mbukpa called on the government to provide digitised library and put in place a system where the girls don’t have to go to other sites that would not be significant to their learning.

The selected schools for the competitions include Light of Day School, Kubwa; Capville School, Government Secondary School (GSS) Dutse, GSS Garki, GSS Wuse Zone 3 and Maitama Model School.