Special Adviser on Education to Lagos Governor Ambode, Femi Bank-Olemoh said the state government planned to introduce coding skills technology in its Ministry of Education to teach one million people in three years.
Bank-Olemoh made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) at the end of the 5th Edition of the Social Media Week in Lagos on Friday.
“We have set a target for ourselves that we are going to teach one million people in the next three years the coding skills.
“We are going to set up Coding Centres in partnership with private sectors and we will use our school system and our tertiary institutions for the centres.
According to him, the state government will ensure that it teaches Lagosians coding skills to make them relevant in the 21st Century.
Bank-Olemoh said that with the new initiative of the governor, Lagos State was becoming a Smart City out of the 100 most relevant cities in the world.
“People are going to need coding skills technology and that is what we are trying to do in the ministry of education,’’ he said.
He advised the youths to grab whatever opportunity at their disposal, saying that coding was a skill that would transform lives and improve the thinking abilities of the populace, particularly the youths.
He said that coding would help people of Lagos to communicate, acquire skills do business and solve problems in the future.
“Coding is teaching people the language of the future. If you can speak English, you are going to communicate in the future; that is how important coding will be.
Bank-Olemoh said that the advantage of coding was to acquire skills that would make people have good jobs and be relevant in the scheme of things.
SMW Lagos 2017, which ended on March 3, brought together IT experts and stakeholders in various fields including education, health and politics to discuss the benefits and implications of social media on the socio-economic development of Nigeria.
(NAN)
