Senior Education Advisor at the British High Commission Ian Attfield, has urged Nigeria to close all gaps hampering the growth of entrepreneurship in universities, assuring that this will enable incremental innovations that can move the nation and its education sector to the desired height.
Attfield stated this Wednesday in Abuja while fielding questions from journalists during the training it organized with the theme: “Effective National System of Innovation in Nigeria” for the Ministry of Education and its parastatals including the National Universities Commission (NUC), Vice Chancellors, Deans, Heads of Departments and Civil Society Organizations.
He noted that Nigeria has tremendous skills and talents to exploit innovations that needed to be applied to the challenges the country is faced with using its own indigenous models.
“Nigeria has the significant opportunity to leapfrog; Just as we talked about sort of leapfrogging landlines and analogue telephone straight to mobile and digital systems. There are many lessons that can be applied. We’re not saying the UK blueprint should be copied. It has to be indigenous,” he said.
“There are so many challenges facing the world and climate change has a global impact but problems unique to Nigeria like flooding, population, demographic pressures, unavailability of energy can be best solved by talented Nigerians,” he stressed.
Similarly, Prof. Temitayo Shenkoya, Director, Higher Education, British Council, said one of the major problems in the country’s education ecosystem is lack of communication among stakeholders.
This, he said, had led to Nigeria’s curriculums being rejected, “so we brought in all the key stakeholders to relate, network and speak to each other to bridge this gap.”
Andrew Adejo, Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, represented by Khadijat Liman, Director of Education Management/Project Coordinator at the ministry, said the programme was also aimed at exploring effective mechanisms to enhance relationship and connection between players in the national system of innovation.
“Being innovative shows that we don’t have all the answers, and that learning never stops – we can always improve and try new methods and new ways,” she said.
Prof. Yakubu Ochefu Aboki, Secretary-General of the Association of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities, said: “Funding for research and development is grossly inadequate in Nigeria. The global best practice is to do a minimum of 1% of national GDP for research.
“What we have now is far below that threshold. We are hoping that the new government will understand that research and innovation is not a walk in the park. It’s expensive. You have to budget for it, you have to pay for it. But the gains down the line are there for everybody to see.”
