FG Inaugurates Nigeria’s First Education Research Network

Federal Government has commissioned the first Nigerian Research and Education Network (NgREN), a collaboration between the Federal Ministry of Education, The World Bank and the Federal Ministry of Communication Technology.

President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan who commissioned the NgREN disclosed that the NgREN is a World Bank-assisted project that will create an effective infrastructural backbone to interconnect all research and education institutions in the country and link them with other Research and Education Networks worldwide.

He stressed that the NgREN is aimed at ensuring a seamless knowledge flow between Nigerian Educational institutions and their counterparts around the world. President Jonathan who was represented by Barrister Eyesom Wike, minister of State for Education-also emphasized that the project is expected to drive down the exorbitant costs of bandwidth while at the same time increasing the capacity of the network members to deliver world class teaching and research services.

President Jonathan stressed that the FG is committed to fully revamping the educational sector to make Nigeria a reference point globally. He added that in line with FG’s transformational agenda, the educational system is being transformed through effective partnerships for maximum impact.

President Jonathan stressed the importance of ICT for enabling transformational development and disclosed that the ICT sector in Nigeria now contributes almost 9% to Nigeria’s GDP.

Dr Omobola Johnson, minister of Communication Technology,  in her remarks described the commissioning of the NgREN as a ‘’significant milestone’’.

She said that that 27 Federal Universities have been connected to the NgREN through the World Bank STEP B fund.

Johnson emphasized that the expected outcome of the NgREN is the facilitation of bi-directional communication for the purpose of sharing resources and content and the facilitation of research amongst benefitting institutions.

Reiterating that in the world of ICT content is king-Johnson urged the NUC, CVC and other stakeholders in the NgREN to ensure that the NgREN has quality content.

‘’I am encouraging the NUC, CVC and other stakeholders in the NgREN to ensure that we have quality content on the NgREN that will be the envy of other nations. If we do not it will be like building a power station, evacuating power to the grid but not bothering to turn on the light switch’’.

Johnson also disclosed that the Universal Services Provision Fund through the University Inter Campus Connectivity Project (UnICC) is now working to expand the NgREN.

The first phase of the UNICC project involves the deployment of approximately 290 km of fibre optic cable to connect 16 of the Federal Universities with their corresponding Medical College/Teaching Hospitals. This phase will be commissioned before the end of this year.

The second phase of the UnICC project, involves the deployment of relevant electronic components and end user devices in each of the benefitting universities to enable voice, data, video, and other multimedia services to be achieved both intra-university and inter-universities.

Dr Johnson disclosed that the Ministry is also collaborating with the Nigerian Universities Commission NUC on the Student Computer Ownership Scheme.

The scheme is also a collaboration between commercial banks, indigenous equipment manufacturers and the NUC to ensure that every Nigerian student in a tertiary institution owns a computer in addition to having access to computing facilities in a shared computer labs.

The commissioning of the NgREN was graced by members of the members of the National Assembly, members of the Federal Executive Council, Board members and CEOs of Parastatals and extra ministerial departments, members of the diplomatic corps, captains of Industry, vice chancellors of Nigerian universities and other stakeholders in the ICT and education sector.