NIGEDU CLOUD: Model of a National e-Education Cloud for Developing Countries

To achieve global competitiveness, governments in developing countries are evolving and implementing information technology policies, to enable their countries participate in the current ICT revolution. One barrier to attaining the education objectives of the policies is inadequate national ICT infrastructure and services. The inadequacy of ICT infrastructure and services is attributed to inadequate government funding, which in turn becomes difficult for education institutions to own and use sophisticated ICT facilities. In spite of inadequate funding, the gap can be reduced if education institutions in developing countries have access to ICT infrastructures available in developed countries. A technology platform that makes this possible is cloud computing. The design for national cloud computing model is proposed in this paper. This model is envisioned as a good strategy for achieving the education-related objectives of the Nigeria's national IT policy. By this model, the government would be responsible for providing high-end computing infrastructure and e- education services to educational institutions in the country. This model will provide affordable access to technologies for e-education, enabling more collaboration, and better education outcomes in developing countries.