Prof. Julius Okojie, executive secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), said so far 27 Nigerian universities had been connected to share high-speed 10 gigabit core and internet resources content to boost research findings in the nation’s higher institutions.
Prof. Julius Okojie, who made this disclosure at the just held West African Research and Education Network (WACREN) workshop on Network Monitoring and Measurement, said the installation in the 27 federal universities, which is the first phase, had so far gulped $10 million (N2.4bn), while informing that N28 billion was still needed to cover all the universities.
“The focus is to enable online researches in universities and offer efficiencies of unified communications and consolidation of digital content in research and development in line with global demands,” he said.
He noted that over a period of 30 years, Nigeria lost out in research findings in higher institutions because of lack of capacity from professors and academic doctors who travelled out as diasporans outside the country.
“What we are trying to do is to ensure that we intervene through diverse means by ensuring we build capacity of our academics, build infrastructure on ICT to accommodate diverse research methodologies such as video conferencing, teleconferencing, that would bring faster results for collaborative learning between educational institutions within and outside the country,” he said.
He explained that the NUC in conjunction with the Committee of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities and with the support of the World Bank-assisted Science and Technology Education, Post basic (step-B) project, established Nigerian Research and Education Network to facilitate Inter-institutional collaboration, share access to knowledge across national and international boundaries.
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