FORMER Minister of Power and Chief Executive Officer of Geometric Power Limited, Professor Bart Nnaji, yesterday, said the N3billion intervention grant given for research by the federal government to tertiary institutions is too small to encourage research development.
He stated this at the National Higher Education Forum, organized by Tell magazine in collaboration with Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFUND, in Abuja.
Nnaji also urged the Federal Government to establish an agency that would oversee research and award grants to researchers in the country.
According to him; “N3 billion is not enough, though it sounds a lot to an individual but for a country it is nothing. Funding of education is not enough in this nation, because education is the engine of the minds of the people. If we do not have adequate funding we cannot have adequate infrastructure, we would not have enough teachers. There is need for the Federal Government to provide enough incentives for teachers to stay in classrooms.
Benefit of society
“Most institutions are trying to find a way to continue to do research because in a university you cannot become a Professor without having done research, that is just the fact. Some of them have to go abroad to get things done but research has to be done here for the benefit of our society.
“The federal government has a critical role to play, government should be the one to support the research of tertiary institutions that is how it is done everywhere. There should be certain amount dedicated every year to research by the government. The academicia should compete to get the grant and they must deliver on what they say they are going to do, otherwise they would not get research grant anywhere again and that is how it is done all over the world.
“Students also participate in research. Professors do not just do the research they involve the students and we are not doing that now. We must start doing that if we are really interested in progressing the industrial space because it is from this research project that employment can occur and prosperity of the society is based on this.”
He stressedthat it is imperative for the government to establish an agency that awards grants for research that is transparent and devoid of corruption. “Now a government program that awards grants must completely be structured to ensure transparency and to ensure that corruption cannot set in. without getting into details of this, I would say that government needs to establish an agency that does not merely handle research and development awards. It should also empower the major ministries, like Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Technology, to have the ability to support basic research and operate a small business innovation research and development program.”
The Vice Chancellor, University of Lagos, Prof. Rahamon Bello, while speaking to journalists said, apart from the fact that research is not well coordinated, the nation has not been taking research seriously.
“Funding research is not the main thing to get meaningful research done that would translate and move the nation forward. It is quite an expensive exercise and Nigeria has not been taking it seriously. If we really want to move on and become one of the developed nations then we need to put a lot of money into research.””Funding does not have to come from the government alone and one of the problems of research is that we do not have risk funding in Nigeria. A funding agency would have to take risk.
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