Nigeria currently needs more 500,000 data protection officers, the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) has disclosed.
Dr Vincent Olatunji, NDPC’s National Commissioner, disclosed this in Abuja, recently.
It will be recalled that the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) recently sent letters to the Heads of Polytechnics and Monotechnics, directing for the unbundling of HND Computer Science course into four specialised areas, reports Nigerian Tribune.
The areas included Artificial Intelligence, Networking and Cloud Computing, Software and Web Development, as well as Cyber security and Data Protection.
“I am glad that this is coming at this time because it is like giving credence to what we are doing and identifying the areas we need to focus on.
“There is a deficit of manpower in these areas and in an area like data protection we need a minimum of 500,000 data protection officers.
“The certified ones in the country are not more than 10,000, hence the dire need for experts in the area to bridge skills gap,” he said.
Olatunji said that the commission is working to set up a body whereby trainers could come together and identify special institutions, universities and polytechnics to train data protection officers.
He also said the five strategic pillars of the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, including innovation, entrepreneurship and capital, had AI development as its major component.
Olatunji, however, said there is the need to consider existing curriculums to reflect the change in line with best practices for global competitiveness.
According to him, this is an added advantage to the commission and it will be happy to work with NBTE to achieve results.
