The Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman, Tuesday in Abuja, inaugurated the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund’s) National Research Fund Screening and Monitoring Committee (NRFS&MC).
The committee comprises of 55 members, and 48 Technical Advisory Group (TAG) members, respectively.
The event also witnessed the presentation of the report of an earlier committee set up for the upgrade of equipment in laboratories and workshops in beneficiary institutions across the country.
In his brief remarks, the minister said in developed countries, universities and higher institutions are the bedrocks of their research and development. Unfortunately, he said, the reverse had always been the case in Nigeria, the reason for which he commended TETFund for initiating the works of those committees.
“Our universities, both public and private, are growing in leaps and bounds, yet their impacts can only be felt in numbers and not in research. Universities have a lot to do towards ensuring that their research works not only benefit the society but the university community itself. That is why the government is doing a lot in that regards by supporting universities through TETFund,” he said.
The executive secretary of TETFund, Arc Sonny Echono, noted that the event was one of the key activities of the agency towards providing funds for research and publication within its content-based intervention.
He said: “TETFund’s National Research Fund intervention line was introduced in 2009 as a special intervention aimed at promoting the conduct of applied research and innovation in the nation’s public tertiary educational institutions.
“To actualise the objective of the scheme, the board of trustees set up the NRFS&MC and charged it with the responsibility for implementing and administering the intervention. In 2020, the committee carried out a review of the three thematic areas of our research spectrum. Since inception, a total of 912 research grants have been awarded at a total cost of N24, 021,679,195.88.”