The Enugu State Government has trained civil servants in the state on digital skills to boost workflow, efficiency, and productivity for workers between the ages of 21 to 45 years.
The government began implementing the Digital Skill Nigeria (DSN) programme as part of the measures to digitize the Enugu civil service, equip workers with modern skills like their counterparts in developed countries, and institute e-governance infrastructure in the state.
The programme, a collaboration between the Enugu State government, Microsoft, the Federal Ministry of Communication, Innovation and Digital Economy, and Tech4Dev, in the first batch that lasted for two weeks, trained at least 2,000 federal, state, and local government civil servants in the Enugu, with the state government poised to train as many as 10,000 civil servants in the state by the end of the last quarter of 2024.
During the training at the Digital-Skills Enhancement Zones at the Institute of Management and Technology (IMT), Enugu and the Enugu State College of Education Technical, workers were trained on soft skills ranging from how to basic computer knowledge, accessing information online, communicating and participating safely online, Microsoft Word and Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, to Cybersecurity fundamentals, and many more.
Governor Peter Mbah in a message to the trainees stressed on the importance of the programme to the success of his administration.
“The modernization of the public service is key to our administration. We are embarking on training and retraining of public and civil servants to optimize productivity and imbibe the right work culture necessary for the achievements we plan for Enugu State,” he said.
The Special Adviser on Digital Economy and MSMEs & Director General, Enugu SME Center, Mr. Arinze Chilo-Offiah, emphasized the importance of the program in driving Enugu State’s digital transformation and economic growth. On the seriousness of the training, he stressed that the already trained workers must pass a thorough assessment before adequate certification.
He noted that the civil servants in the first batch of the training in the first batch were selected through a systemic process that helped to identify those with limited digital literacy in the workforce to close such gaps.
He said that the workers having gained the needed skills were expected to learn more and add more value to their service delivery and to the growth of the state, adding that they were also expected to be competent enough to help professionals in teaching their peers in the second batch of the programme.
Chilo-Offiah said the DSN programme by advancing digital literacy, would improve efficiency and excellent delivery within the civil service, support e-government infrastructure, boost sustainable economic growth and job creation in Enugu and Nigeria.
