MTNF Parleys ABU Students

Over 3,000 students of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria benefited from a one-day interactive session with top officials of MTN and its CSR vehicle, MTN Foundation (MTNF) last week, at the institution’s assembly hall.
The forum was aimed at enriching the knowledge of the students in the area of telecommunications and equipping them with the information they need to get the best out of the digital library donated to the school by the MTNF.
ABU Zaria is one of the three beneficiary institutions, which received a fully equipped internet library comprising 128 networked computers, 3 servers, 2 high capacity printers and a 100KVA generating set from the Foundation. Other beneficiary tertiary institutions are the University of Lagos and the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Work on similar project is ongoing at the University of Benin.  
The interactive session according to Akinwale Goodluck, MTN’s Corporate Services executive, is part of a comprehensive strategy to ensure that the UniversitiesConnect project delivers optimally on its objectives. He said students will be educated and enlightened on ways by which they can best use the learning resources available at the library.
Expected to be present at the session are directors of the MTNF, senior and executive management from MTN, authorities of the institution including the dean of Students’ Affairs, the university librarian, among other stakeholders.
This session is coming on the heels of  a previous UniversitiesConnect workshop held  by the Foundation to train about 200 students and lecturers to improve their research capabilities and general utility of the digital laboratory, which is linked to over 5,500 virtual libraries in Africa and Europe.
Other programmes under the MTNF’s education portfolio include the SchoolsConnect project, which also provides digital libraries for secondary school students. To date, over 5,000 students and 1,000 teachers across 28 states of the federation, including the FCT have benefited from the SchoolsConnect project.
Under another project tagged: Learning Materials Initiative, the MTNF is distributing learning materials such as text books and exercise books, sandals, school bags, water bottles, tables, chairs, etc to indigent pupils in public primary and secondary schools, in the 6 geopolitical zones of the country.