IN 2012, if Nigeria must compete duly on the global landscape, the need to focus on developing a knowledge economy has been described as a sine-qua-non.The knowledge economy, according to the Chairman, Zinox Technologies, Mr. Leo Stan Ekeh, would focus on developing Nigeria's tertiary institutions, which according to him needed government support to avoid total collapse.Ekeh during an interactive session with journalists in Lagos recently also urged government at all levels to urgently revamp decayed infrastructure in the institutions of learning in the country.To achieve this, he advised the Federal Government to spend at least N750bn on the tertiary education and repairs of infrastructure in 2012, adding that government should retrain deficient and unemployable graduates roaming the street in the country.According to him, Federal Government should spend N250 billion each on the three areas mentioned above.He specifically urged the government to spend N250 on improving educational infrastructure and another N250 on the provision of content, especially Information Technology content in tertiary institutions.'In 2012, I expect the Federal Government to put N500 billion into the school system. This will automate the schools. While N250 billion should be spent on improving infrastructure, another N250 billion should be channelled into the tertiary education system. Government should use this to develop IT contents in the tertiary,' he stated.Besides, he equally wanted to the government to spend N250 billion on retraining graduates who have been produced by the country's deficient education system, adding that this would make them employable and boost the country's low human resource capacity.'Government should also spend N250bn to re-educate the over five million unemployable graduates roaming the streets without jobs. They need to go through some form of re-education to measure up with the peers in the international market and become employable. This will address the problem of human capital as entrepreneurs will be able to employ more people to expand their businesses.'Ekeh also urged the Federal Government to provide laptops to students through subsidy, adding that 50 per cent of the financially deficient Nigerians would have access to computers if this were done.The Zinox boss, who noted that the funding should be spread over three quarters of 2012, said that the impact would be felt in improved lifestyles and standard of living for millions of Nigerians.He noted that majority of the collapsed businesses in the country hit the rocks, because they spent less on ICT automation, among other sundry reasons.As such, Ekeh said that more organisations should expand their businesses and automate their operations in 2012.Commenting on the 2012 budget as it relates to ICT, the Zinox boss said: 'The budget for ICT is not consolidated. What we want to see in the future is that budgets of all the MDAs under the Ministry of Communications Technology should be consolidated so that things are done properly.'On the performance of the IT sector in 2011, Ekeh said that the INEC electronic voter registration which preceded the 2011 elections raised IT awareness in the country by 17 per cent.He recalled that the Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, had said that the voters' registration and the general elections of 2011 succeeded because of the performance of Zinox Computers in the supply of 80,000 Direct Data Capture Machines.The INEC Chairman, who spoke during the 2011 National Information Technology Merit Award in Lagos, on Friday, noted that wherein foreign suppliers faltered, it was Zinox that did not only deliver credibly but also reached out to help the foreign companies.
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