Nigeria establishes university database

Worried about poor online data management and certificate forgery among students, the Nigerian government has established the National Universities Commission Data Base (NUCDB).

The speedy development of a viable database for the university system in Nigeria was long overdue and will stop students' online crime involvement, said Minister of Education Igwe Aja-Nwachuku at a workshop on database project development in Abuja.

"Valuable data have been lost by various universities due to no existence of a central databank as a back up to fall on when necessary," he said.

The NUCDB will serve as a central data repository, Aja-Nwachuku said, providing access to information on students, university staff, facilities, programs, research and all other relevant activities of Nigerian universities.

The central database will not only reduce cases of fake certificates, but will solve the problem of data availability and management, he said.

With Nigeria following the global trend of electronic information sharing, Aja-Nwachuku also raised the alarm over increased cybercrime in the country.

"I am urging every vice chancellor and the NUC to ensure that people who man your data centers are people of integrity if you want your data to be preserved and not tampered with, because gradually our youths are moving from cult crime to cybercrime," he warned.

The central database will help track fake universities established to swindle students and parents, curb incidence of mobilization of fake National Youth Service Corps members, and track students who impersonate senior officials or even lecturers, added NUC executive secretary Professor Julius Okojie.

Okojie recognized that deploying NUCDB will be a great challenging, and he urged every university to contribute to make it a success.

The final product, he said, will not only add value to service delivery, but will develop a strong reference base for research works, theses, lectures and achievements of professor and academicians.

"We would like to see a university system that is moved with the wind of 21st century edge, where valuable data are stored and retrieved online," Okojie said. "We would like to see a university system where lecturers, professors and researcher efforts are rewarded."