Students and staff from public universities and colleges across Malawi should soon start enjoying improved Internet services in their campuses following a training session for network engineers from seven public institutions organised by the Malawi Research and Education Network, (MAREN)
MAREN has organised the training session, which runs from 2nd to 13th December 2019 through funding from the World Bank through the Digital Malawi Project with UbuntuNet Alliance providing technical support through the provision of trainers from within itself and its members from the Research and Education Networks of Zambia and Mozambique.
14 engineers from the College of Medicine, Chancellor College, Kamuzu College of Nursing, Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Sciences, LUANAR, Mzuzu University and Malawi Science and Technology University (MUST) are taking part in the workshop which will see the engineers doing campus network assessments and Wi-Fi deployment among others.
Speaking in an interview, MAREN Chief Executive Officer, Solomon Dindi said the training session will help the engineers get ready to restructure their campus networks to be in line with best practices as well as deploy Wi-Fi and educational roaming services in the country’s public colleges and universities.
“As MAREN, we are getting ready to start distributing our Internet bandwidth following our recent connection to the UbuntuNet Alliance. We would like to ensure that our member institutions, the colleges and research centres, are ready for our high speed Internet and this training is one of those initiatives that will get our members prepared.”
In his remarks, UbuntuNet Alliance CEO, Eng. Dr. Matthews Mtumbuka said his organisation is happy to provide the technical assistance which he said will go a long way in helping public universities and colleges in the country make similar progress being made by their counterparts in countries where UbuntuNet Alliance is providing Internet connectivity to universities and research institutions.
“We are happy to learn that the MAREN is making good progress in terms of optimising research and education collaboration. We would like to see higher learning institutions in the country attain same level of progress with their peers in Zambia and Uganda and Mozambique where our internet connectivity has revolutionised teaching and learning,” said Mtumbuka.