NAN-H-87
NICO
By Maureen Okon
Abuja, Aug. 23, 2017 (NAN) Dr Barclay Ayakoroma, the Executive Secretary of the National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO) on Wednesday said its training school had been remodeled to become a full department.
Ayakoroma made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Abuja.
He said that the institute’s training school was designed to train cultural officers at the federal, state and local government level.
“NICO is an institute which is supposed to train cultural officers at the federal, state and local government level, when I came on board, the training school was domicile in the Lagos liaison office.
“ I felt it was not good enough, we needed to make the training school standout, and we achieved that by making the training school to be a full department of its own.
“Thereby making the department five, instead of the three that I met on ground. Formally, it was Admin and Finance, Research and Documentation and Training and Orientation.
“We now have training school as a department of its own, others are Finance and Account, Admin and Human Resources, Research and Documentation and Orientation and Cultural Affairs departments,’’ he said.
The Executive Secretary said that the school became functional and active as members of staff were sent to the school to be trained and be equipped on the cultural matters.
“The training school became active; we made it functional by ensuring that members of staff were sent to the training school.
“So the training school has become a finishing school for all employees in the cultural department, ’’he explained.
Ayakoroma, however, said that the challenges of recognition of certificate from the training school of NICO had been addressed by its affiliation with the Nasarawa State University.
“It runs a degree in Theater and Cultural Studies which we have started the process of affiliation and by so doing, we started the training school programme here in Abuja.
“We run the Advanced Diploma and the Post Graduate Diploma in Cultural Administration.
“Then most of our resource persons in view of the affiliation are from Nasarawa State University and just this month we have received the final letter to that effect,’’ he said. (NAN)
ETIM/AAB/GY
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Edited By Adeboye Ajayi/Grace Yussuf