Delta Government on Sunday said it had commenced the building of centres for Joint Admission and Matriculation Board’s (JAMB) computer-based University Matriculation Examination (UME).
Mr Sunny Ofili, the Special Adviser on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to the state governor, made this known in an interview in Asaba.
JAMB had, earlier in the year, announced that its UME would be computer-based from 2015.
Ofili said that the computer laboratories were being established in schools in every local government area in the state so as to provide centres as needed by JAMB.
He, however, declined to give the number of schools slated for the programme, saying, “We are still working on the right number and I will give it to you when the number is determined”.
He said that his office was collaborating with the state’s Ministries of Basic and Secondary Education and Higher Education, respectively, to strengthen computer literacy in schools in the state.
He disclosed that the state government had trained teachers on computer and equipped schools with computers for training of pupils and students.
According to him, the measure is to give students in the state necessary computer education and ensure that they can compete favourably with their counterparts anywhere in the world.
Ofili decried the attitude of some school heads who denied pupils and students access to the computers in their schools.
He said that such attitude was against government’s policy of making pupils and students computer-literate, and warned that any school head that violated the policy would be sanctioned.
He also disclosed that the government had concluded plans to establish an Information Communication Technology (ICT) park at Ugbolu, near Asaba, under a Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) arrangement.
He said that the government was partnering Omatek, an ICT firm, on the project, adding that work would commence on it before the end of the year. [NAN]
