The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), in collaboration with Co-Creation Hub (CcHUB) have updated the 2016 Technology Talent Gap Analysis to a National Technology Talent Gap Analysis Research 2022.
Mrs Hadiza Umar, Head Corporate Affairs and External Relations of NITDA and Mr Muhammad Eyinfunjowo, Senior Communications Manager, CcHUB made the said this on Thursday in a joint statement issued in Abuja.
The updated analysis that includes data and insights, incorporates a more rigorous study approach, captures the change in the technology talent need and supply from the initial study.
“This research will give us great insights into the knowledge gaps that have been identified and will help us make better decisions on technology talent gap acceleration in Nigeria, said Kashifu Inuwa,” the Director-General of NITDA.
Also, Mr Bosan Tijani, Chief Executive Officer of CcHUB, said they are excited to be working with NITDA again on the research, as they will further curate useful insights on the technology talent demand and supply in Nigeria.
Tijani explained that Nigeria’s technology ecosystem had expanded over the past decade, resulting to the shortage of expertise.
“With a population of over 200 million and a staggering unemployment rate of 33.3 per cent one out of every three Nigerians who are able and eager to work are unemployed,” he said.
Tijani said that the research, which was a National Multi-Stakeholder Research Project, involved a thorough investigation conducted into the gaps and potential that could be brought to the forefront in Nigeria.
According to him, the shortage of literature on particular technological skills deficiencies in the Nigerian IT sector was one of the gaps and possibilities.
“This is an excellent opportunity for this study to define the key and specialised technology talent in Nigeria, their supply and demand projections.
“Also,most Nigerian institutions of higher education have an incomplete grasp of the impact of technology education programmes.
“This is an opportunity for the study to gather feedback on the impact from study participants, particularly students,” she said.
Tijani added that the 2022 study will apply a descriptive research approach and triangulation of data, among other strategies.
“The quantitative method intends to collect data from practising technology developers and university undergraduates in technology, computer science, and other relevant subjects.
“While the qualitative will collect data from Universities, technology talent headhunters, Polytechnics, organisations heavily dependent on technology talents, development partners, foreign tech-talent recruiters, government parastatals, and alternative technology education platforms.
“In addition, the research will analyse previous publications on technological talent and technology skills in Nigeria to get a broad understanding of the topic under investigation and supplement the aforementioned methodologies.
“Finally, the research will also collect public opinion on the topic of the supply and demand for IT talent in Nigeria employing pre-planned tweets relating to poaching,” he said.
She also said that in the research, while using Cochran’s method, the sample size was obtained using a multi-stage sampling technique.
According to Tijani, information will be gathered from 1,330 samples collected throughout all sectors.
CcHUB launched Nigeria’s first open living laboratory for technologists, entrepreneurs, tech companies, investors and hackers in 2010 to accelerate the application of social capital and technology for economic prosperity.
