Erasmus Alaneme
24 November 2009
Abuja — EXECUTIVE Secretary, Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC), Professor Godswill Obioma has disclosed that the ultra-modern virtual library project embarked upon by his agency has been stalled due to lack of funds to complete the project.
Obioma who spoke while receiving members of the House Committee on Education led by Honourable George Jelaoye appealed to the National Assembly to come to the aid of the Council by improving its budgetary allocation to enable the Council complete its ongoing projects.
The E-library project according to him was intended to serve the entire country, linking all the tertiary and educational institutions in the country to facilitate knowledge sharing and research activities for enhanced quality of education in Nigeria.
Unfortunately, Obioma said the N40 million appropriated by the National Assembly in the 2009 budget could not get through at the Executive level for the project to be completed. According to him, "Our main challenge is the Library. You could recall that when you came last year you asked us to bring the cost estimate from the consultant, which we did and you graciously gave us N40 million, which would have completed the project that is designed to an ICT based Library to serve not only the Council but the entire country that is the in-thing now."
He said it was however, unfortunate that at "the Executive level, the funds were not there, so we could no go beyond that stage", while also stressing that the project was dear to the agency in view of the need to drive the newly reviewed curriculum for both primary and secondary education on "an e-form to be able to get all learners, irrespective of where there are".
Honourable George Jelaoye, who led the Committee, while expressing satisfaction with the performance of the Council over the last two years, further challenge the NRDC as the research orientated agency to reorder the Nigeria's learning system towards the hope for the country to be technologically developed by the year 2020.
He expressed the commitment of the National Assembly to the cause of revival of Nigeria 's educational system but called on the government agencies responsible for the implementations of government policies to take their jobs more seriously for the betterment of the society and growth of education.
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