By Okey Maduforo Awka.
Former Minister for Aviation Chief Osita Chidoka has insisted a joint collaboration of both the Federal and state governments in the he building of data architecture for secondary and tertiary institutions across the country.
This is coming as the NIgerian Research and Tertiary Education Network NgREN appoints the Athena Center for Policy and Leadership member of it’s Governing Board.
According to Chidoka who represented the Athena Center at the inauguration, there is no way the federal government would embark on such all important program without the partnering with the respective state governments that own those institutions .
Chidoka who is the Chancellor of Athena Center welcomed the digital innovation underway but stressed the importance of deeper inclusion of state governments, who own and manage most Nigerian schools, in planning, implementation, and financing. According to him:
“For education to succeed, states must invest, lead, and commit. The Federal Government must coordinate and support, but it cannot carry the burden of school management alone.”he noted.
According to the Media and Communications Officer for the Board , Mr Paul Liam in a statement ;
NgREN -Nigeria’s national research and education backbone – provides high-speed connectivity, shared digital services, and collaboration infrastructure for universities and research institutions, while TERAS powers the digital applications that support research, data exchange, and digital learning across the tertiary system.
The new NgREN/TERAS Board was inaugurated by the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, and the Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, at the Nigeria National EdTech Strategy Mid-Term Co-Creation Workshop, hosted with support from Mastercard Foundation and the World Bank Group.
The Board includes the Executive Secretaries of NUC, NBTE, NCCE, and TETFund; representatives of vice chancellors, rectors, and provosts; and major digital infrastructure stakeholders such as NCC, Galaxy Backbone, and USPF. The Athena Centre joins the Board as the civil society voice.
In his remarks, Dr. Alausa acknowledged the Centre’s role in shaping national transparency reforms, noting that the Ministry’s Federal Tertiary Institutions Governance Transparency Portal (FTIGTP) drew inspiration from Athena’s research and advocacy.
He expressed confidence that the reconstituted Board will deliver measurable improvements within two years to strengthen Nigeria’s research ecosystem and digital readiness.
Reaffirming the Ministry’s digital direction, Dr. Alausa stated: “For the first time, Nigeria is building a unified data architecture for basic, secondary, and tertiary institutions. You cannot reform what you cannot measure, and we are determined to measure what matters.”
Echoing the need for interoperability, Dr. Tijani emphasised the importance of shared digital infrastructure, noting: “Digital transformation fails when systems operate in silos. Our priority is a national architecture where platforms talk to each other and every school is connected.”
