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| The Executive Secretary, NUC, Prof. Julius Okojie with
the Deputy Executive Secretary I, Prof. Chiedu Mafiana, at the opening of
the Workshop on Network Monitoring and Measurement, held at the NUC, Abuja
|
The Executive Secretary, National Universities
Commission, (NUC) and
Chairman of the Board of the
Nigerian Research and Education
Network (NgREN), Professor
Julius A. Okojie, OON, has
expressed the commitment of
NgREN to partner with the West
and Central African Research and
Education Network (WACREN) to
maximise the benefits of the
second phase of the Africa Connect
Project. Professor Okojie stated
this at the opening ceremony of the
Workshop on Network Monitoring
and Measurement, held at the
Commission.
Professor Okojie observed that the
commissioning of the first operational
REN in West and Central
Africa in July, 2014, for the purpose
of collaborative research and
learning between educational
institutions within and outside the
country was yielding result. He
stated that the objectives of
NgREN was to, among other
things, provide more and cheaper
bandwidth for member institutions;
provide an efficient network
infrastructure to the Research and
Education Community and establish
a framework that enabled
resource sharing and facilitated
innovation and development;
provide network services and
application such as identity federation, e-content hosting, network
security, bandwidth management,
IP telephony and video
conferencing.
The NUC Scribe said that the
Commission, being a quality
assurance Agency, was responsible
for the development of university
education in Nigeria, recognising
the need to ensure that Nigerian universities became centres of
academic excellence of world class
standards, where the potential of
ICT was harnessed to serve as a
catalyst for effective teaching,
learning and research. “ It believes
in quality manpower development,
aimed at the promotion of innovations
in education towards ensuring
the production of graduates and
research developments that would
be globally competitive”, he said.
The Executive Secretary noted that
in recognising the critical role that
research and education played in
the development of the citizenry
and the nation at large, the NUC, in
conjunction with the Committee of
Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian
Universities (CVC), supported by
the world Bank-assisted Science
and Technology Education, PostBasic
(Step-B) Project, commisth
sioned NgREN on 8 July, 2014, as
the first operational Research and
Education Network in West and
Central Africa, with the aim of
facilitating inter-institutional
communication and aiding collaborative
research and learning
between educational institutions,
within and outside the county, while providing a platform for new
technologies to be tested and
implemented.
Professor Okojie noted that at its
establishment, the NgREN was
charged with the objectives of
providing more and cheaper
bandwidth for member institutions,
ensuring an efficient network
infrastructure to the research and
education community, and establishing
a framework that enabled
resource sharing and innovation of
facilities and development, to
provide network services and
application such as identity federation,
e-content, hosting, network
security, bandwidth management ,
IP telephony, video conferencing,
among others, to the research
community. He added that, the first
phase of the network had connected
all the 27 founding federal
universities, the NUC and CVC
Secretariat to a high speed 10
Gigabit core and thus having
access to share internet resources,
content, capacity development
initiatives and collaboration. The Executive Secretary stated that
the NUC was working with the
Federal Government of Nigeria to
expand the network from the
existing 29 nodes to the remaining
universities and other Higher
Education and Research Institutions
in Nigeria. In addition, the
NUC was also collaborating with
the Federal Ministry of Communication
Technology, through the
Universal Service Provision Fund
(USPF) of the Nigerian Communications
Commission (NCC) to
implement the Inter-Campus
Connectivity (UnICC) project. He
said that all these facilities, put in
place, were intended to address the
challenges of infrastructure, and
joint research within the community
that had militated against its
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| Participants undergoing training on the use of the NgREN facilities at the Workshop |
ability to benefit from the many
global efforts such as Euro-Africa
joint programmes, the Horizon
2020 and Africa Connect Projects.
Currently, only the Ubuntu Net
Alliance (in the Eastern and
Southern Africa) was benefiting
from these projects, although with
the support of NgREN, the West
and Central African Research and
Education Network could be part
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