THE Federal Government has banned public universities and other tertiary institutions in the country from subscribing to private providers of Internet broadband with immediate effect.
Government has accordingly directed Nigerian tertiary institutions, including universities, polytechnics and colleges of education, to move their connectivity and services to the Nigerian Research Educational Network (NgREN), a flagship of the National Universities Commission (NUC).
Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, gave this directive on Tuesday, in Abuja, at a workshop on EBESCOHOST Electronic Content, organised by NUC for vice chancellors and other representatives of Nigerian universities.
The NUC is currently working with EBSCOHOST, a South African Information and Technology firm, to provide electronic books and journals that could be accessed by all users in Nigeria.
Adamu, who was represented by the Minister of State for Education, Professor Anthony Anwukah, said the Federal Government would no longer condone a situation, where individual institutions subscribed at higher costs for services which could be privided at a cheaper rate through the NgREN consortium.
It was gathered that on the average, a Nigerian university spent about N60 million for 155mbps of Internet bandwidth, when NgREN offered the same service at less than N26 million.
The minister said: “We have directed that every Nigerian tertiary education institution; universities, polytechnics and colleges of education should move their connectivity and services need to the NgREN immediately.
“The situation, whereby institutions collect money from the Federal Governmenty and individually incur higher costs when a cheaper alternative is available through consortium and economies of scale, would not be condoned,” he said.
While reiterating the commitment of the Federal Government to providing quality education in Nigeria, the minister also directed NUC to immediately commence identification of other sources of information and negotiate their availability to the Nigerian university system.
He noted that government was aware of funding and resource challenges and asked NUC to work closely with the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), to ensure a sustainable and excellent information base for tertiary institutions in Nigeria.
Adamu said the Nigerian university system was a critical component in the determination of the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to bequeath a legacy of highly skilled manpower that could support social and economic development.
Executive Secretary of NUC, Professor Julius Okojie, speaking on the importance of the workshop, said having robust information base of e-books and e-journals, would further improve the rating of Nigeria universities in world ranking.
He applauded the Federal Government’s directive for all public tertiary institutions to move their connectivity to NgREN, saying the idea was for cost saving, in line with the disposition of the current administration.
Okojie lamented that Nigerian universities were not quite there yet in terms of research, urging the institutions to be more up and doing in conduct of cutting edge research.
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