NUC Seeks ₦28b To Complete NgREN Project For Varsities

Professor Julius Okojie, Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission

National Universities Commission, NUC, said about ₦28 billion is needed from the Federal Government and other stakeholders to complete the second phase of the Nigerian Research and Education Network, NgREN, project. The NgREN project a concept of the NUC, World Bank-assisted Science and Technology Education Post Basic, STEP-B, and other technical partners, targeting the expansion of broadband learning platform for universities in Nigeria, especially on research infrastructures.

Speaking during the opening ceremony at a workshop on West and Central African Research and Education Network, WACREN, in Abuja, executive secretary of NUC, Julius Okojie, noted that over a space of 30 years, academic researchers in universities have gone into extinction owing to poor learning resources.

National Mirror report continues:

He stressed that this was a result of poor visibility of Nigerian universities on the internet, which has also hindered ranking of the nation’s universities in the global community.

Lamenting the dearth of research culture in the country, Okojie disclosed that the NgREN project is intended to encourage teaching and research in tertiary institutions in Nigeria. However, he noted that “what is delaying the second phase is that it will cost about ₦28 billion.

We want a big leap. We can share video conferencing, teleconferencing and it is not just a pedestal research.

He added that NgREN was set up among other things, to provide cheaper bandwidth for member institutions as well as provide network services and application such as identity federation, e-content, hosting, network security and bandwidth management.

According to him, US$10,000 had already been injected into the first phase with over 25 Nigerian universities listed in the pilot scheme, but he maintained that, that amount is not enough to carry out research efficiently. Okojie said: “Over a period of 30 years, we lost the research culture. Now, we are trying to build capacity everywhere.

Once the Ph.D and professors left the system, it is difficult to bring capacity; so over a period of time we discovered that we didn’t even have research facilities.

“Government in the past five years has invested massive in these areas through TETFUND and Needs Assessment implementation programme, building structures for research, teaching and learning.

If you don’t have equipment you can’t do research. “We suddenly realized that we are not doing well in terms of sharing information and resources.

There is no better platform than through NgREN; this is an ICT platform where you can inter-connect many organizations that have a common goal; ours is on research and teaching.