Ministry of Communication yesterday in Abuja, inaugurated a computer ownership scheme for students, an initiative was borne out of the fact that students in tertiary institutions were underserved in terms of ICT.
The scheme not only to provide computers for the students, but the main vision was to provide internet connectivity.
Mrs. Omobola Johnson, minister of Communication Technology said that “Any student in a university that can prove that he is a bona fide student in the university and is in good academic standing would be able to get onto a portal that he will key in which school he is in, what his name is, what level, and that information would go to the university.
“The university registrar would then confirm that he or she is a bona fide student in that university, once that’s confirmed, two messages go out – to his guarantor: the person that is going to take the loan on his behalf and it also goes to the bank and to the local assembler.
“The guarantor gets a loan at a fairly reduced rate from the bank which we’ve been able to negotiate; the assembler gets the message that says: `produce this computer for this individual’ and hopefully within a few days the student gets his computer.
“Now this computer also comes bundled with the internet because today a computer is useless without connectivity to the internet.
“The innovative part of this is that this portal that I have just very quickly described to you was actually developed by three young Nigerians.
The scheme has began on a pilot basis with 12 universities; six banks; support from the National Universities Commission, the Ministry of Education as well as the Ministry of Youth Development.