Connectivity: FG orders tertiary institutions to migrate to NgREN

The federal government has directed all tertiary education institutions to move their connectivity and services need to the Nigerian Research and Education Network (NgREN) in other to take advantage of facilities available to enhance quality of education. Minister of State for Education, Prof. Anthony Anwukah stated this on Thursday in Abuja at a workshop on […]

The federal government has directed all tertiary education institutions to move their connectivity and services need to the Nigerian Research and Education Network (NgREN) in other to take advantage of facilities available to enhance quality of education.

Minister of State for Education, Prof. Anthony Anwukah stated this on Thursday in Abuja at a workshop on EBSCOhost Electronic content for Nigerian universities.

The minister said it was necessary for the institutions to adhere to the directives and show greater commitment by imbibing the principles of fiscal responsibility and value for money while the government supports them.

“We do not see any reason why universities should independently pay for services like bandwidth or electronic journals subscription when those services are available on the NgREN platform,” he said.

The minister said government would no longer condone a situation whereby institutions collect money from federal government and individually incur higher costs when a cheaper alternative is available through consortium and economies of scale.

The Executive Secretary of National University Commission, Prof. Julius Okojie in his remarks said the workshop which was to train on access and use of EBSCO Ebook academic collection is key to information resource that is meant to support universities in their drive for excellence.

On the NgREN, Okojie said: “It is cheaper because it is government that is providing funds for everybody and so if we go individually to private providers it is going to be more expensive.”

He pointed out that most universities using private providers cannot be found on the internet in respect of ranking, saying on NgREN, they are going to be on the same platform to share resources, facilities and lecturers using the facilities on ground and that will make them to be more internationally visible.