The Federal Government has approved the establishment of the National Education Repository and Data bank, NERD, system.
Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Maman SAN disclosed this recently at the stakeholders engagement and sensitisation programme for the project held in Abuja. He said apart from approval of the Federal Executive Council, FEC for the project,it had also approved the national policy for its operation.
Mamman described the unveiling of NERD to the stakeholders as a “pivotal moment in the history of post secondary and tertiary education in Nigeria and a groundbreaking initiative of the federal government”.
According to him, in the next five years and beyond, the Federal Ministry of Education with the support of the NUC,NBTE,NCCE and other stakeholders will be leading the NERD project as an unprecedented digitisation and the digitisation effort aimed at capturing from as far back as 1932 every single past academic report and publications ever generated in any of our institutions regardless of ownership type, weather public or private,or military or civilian.
Also speaking, Minister of State for Youth Development, Mr Ayodele Olawande, who was part of the programme, commended the minister. He stated that the day was the greatest day in his life as he was witnessing the federal government employing the institutions of state to solve a most critical national problem on knowledge preservation.
Earlier, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education, David Adejo had disclosed that the ministry began to engage proponents in 2014 and had worked with the NUC and subject matter experts to develop the comprehensive policy.
