Minister directs universities to join NgREN

The Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, has directed all universities in the country to hook up with the Nigerian Research and Education Network.
Adamu gave the directive shortly after watching a video demonstration of NgREN operations at the National Universities Commission on Tuesday in Abuja.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that NgREN is the national research network for Nigeria, established to provide connectivity infrastructure and service layers for innovation in teaching and research in the country.
It is aimed at harmonising knowledge within the tertiary sector to drive productive research, collaboration and knowledge dissemination for the development of the country and mankind.
NgREN has a conference room equipped with video conferencing facilities to communicate with other video conference centres in all member institutions.
The minister, therefore, said: “NUC should send a MEMO to me to mandate all universities to hook up to the network.
“All universities should hook up to NgREN immediately because it is one of the biggest tools for teaching and learning collaboration between the universities.”
Earlier, the NUC Executive Secretary, Prof. Julius Okojie, said NgREN was solving the problem of Internet connectivity in Nigerian universities, adding that it would improve global presence of Nigerian universities.
It would be recalled that on July 8, 2014, the first phase of NgREN was inaugurated, with 27 older federal universities connected.
The Federal University, Lafia also got connected to the network recently.
NAN.