Electronic Teaching Unveiled In 12 Public Universities – Minister

The Minister of Education, Prof. Ruqayyatu Rufa’i, said in Abuja on Monday that the Nigerian Universities Electronic Teaching and Learning Platform had been unveiled in 12 public universities.


Rufa’i spoke at a meeting with Task Teams for the 2013 Mid-Term Review of the four-year strategic plan for the development of the education sector.

She said that the platform would support integration of ICT in teaching, learning and research processes in the institutions.
“This initiative is the first phase in a programme, which is expected to cover 78 federal and state universities in the country.

“This will enable the remote learning and exchange of information among these institutions with each of the institution having access to local digitised content through the virtual library,’’ she said.

The minister added: “we are also supporting our lecturers in the higher institutions of learning to attend local and international conferences to enhance collaboration and research.’’

She said that 5,999 lecturers had been sponsored for local conferences and 2,869 sponsored for conferences outside the country.

She also said that three billion naira had been committed to the National Research Fund.

“It is again targeting our tertiary institutions towards having access to funds to encourage research,” she said.

The minister said that there had been a boom in infrastructure transformation in the tertiary education sector.

She said that in each of the institutions, all areas of infrastructure challenge were being addressed through the provision of new facilities and the rehabilitation of existing ones.

She said that more than N109 billion had been provided for universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.

Rufa’i said the effort was aimed at enhancing the institutions’ facilities and encourage their development as centres of excellence through the High Impact Initiative of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund.

She said that three billion naira had been committed to Book Development Fund and meant to encourage scholarship in higher institutions through the production of books and journals.

“Apart from encouraging publication of research outputs from our institutions, it provides for the distribution of journals to libraries of tertiary institutions free of cost,’’ she said.

The minister the measures were part of the Federal Government’s initiatives to promote quality in higher education.