Training of Software Developers as Catalyst to National Development, Says Okigbo

Training of Software Developers as Catalyst to National Development, Says Okigbo

Worried about skill gap that exists among young graduates of software engineering from tertiary institutions across the country, the President, Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON), Mr. Pius Okigbo has said the solution to the problem was to organise special training and re-training of software developers.

According to him, such training would boost national development in the area of software.

Okigbo told THISDAY that training is both necessary and crucial for the development of the software industry.

He said: "Without adequate training, the sector is dead. Unfortunately, there is a critical gap in software skills that exists among young school graduates, and the onus lies in the the ability of our tertiary institutions to bridge this gap. In the short term, we may seek collaboration with the private sector to provide the critical infrastructure to deliver software engineering courseware to address the skills gap. The ramping up of the numbers is necessary to achieve critical mass but quality is important. This is why we may seek collaboration with people like Osita Onuma to guide and inspire the young minds to achieve great things."

Osita is a product of Nigeria and a world class software engineer who broke the 128 year old record at University of London.

Apart from collaborating with great minds like Onuma and others, Okigbo said ISPON is also exploring multi-stakeholder participation with the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) to deliver aggressive training to help ramp up the skills of young software graduates and that ISPON is currently discussing a proposal with NITDA on that.

Insisting on the need for quality training in software codes and programming, Okigbo said, software firms that were able to get sizable software contracts in the Oil and Gas sector such as custom programming, would require a pool of skilled software talent to deliver on their projects. That skill and talent pool, he said must come from within Nigeria and not from India, China or Thailand, as it is currently being practiced. Okigbo added that such contracts would require a firm to hire from 20 to 80 or more developers and other related skills depending on the nature of the software contract, hence the need for quality training.

He however explained that after the successful training and re-training to close the skill gap, it would be inimical to the industry to have a large talent pool of skilled programmers and there will be no software projects to hire them.

On this premise, Okigbo called on NCDMB to imbibe the principles of compliance within the ambit of the local content law, which made it mandatory for foreign firms operating in Nigeria to adopt certain percentage of local content in all their operations. He also suggested that the local content be implemented in the software industry, which he said, currently lacked foreign patronage. Listing some of the expectations from NCDMB, Okigbo said all software development contracts must include the hiring and training of local talent, and must discourage software firms from exploiting cheap labour from countries like India.

If we fail to enforce the law, our industry will never take off, he said, adding that no Nigerian software firm will be allowed to get a software development contract in India under any circumstance, and wondered why the Nigerian government cannot introduce same measure for foreign software firms that are seeking contracts in Nigeria. Okigbo said ISPON is charting a new course for the industry to groom a large pool of software developers quickly, create value-addition jobs in the shortest possible time, and get these software developers do great things for Nigeria

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