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From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has expressed optimism that the annual allocation to the National Research Fund (NRF) will hit N10 billion in 2022.
Executive Secretary of TETFund, Prof. Suleiman Bogoro, said that with the kind of support coming from the agency’s Board of Trustees, there’s hope the research grant might hit N10bn, as the Board had recently approved N8.5 billion as 2021 allocation for NRF.
Bogoro stated that the increase in the research grant will open more window of opportunities for students and other beneficiaries to deepen their research with superior results.
The TETFund boss spoke at the virtual meeting on ‘Democratization of Higher Education in Nigeria through Open Access,’ co-hosted by TETFund and the Training Centre in Communication, Nairobi, as part of activities to mark International Open Access Week.
He made reference to 2019 when Board of Trustees graciously approved N5 billion for NRF, which was later raised to N7.5 billion in 2020 and N8.5 billion in 2021.
His words: “Over the last two and half years now, we have raised funds available for research. They are two categories; institution based and National Research Fund.”
He said NRF is one of the major platforms put in place by the government through TETFund to support the academic community in research to achieve specific objectives, particularly in the area of science, technology and innovation.
While expressing readiness of TETFund to always mainstream open access/science through massive support for Research and Development (R&D), Bogoro said the Fund had recently established 12 Centres of Excellence across the country.
At the webinar, the Technical Adviser to the TETFund’s Executive Secretary, Dr. Popoola Mustapha Ayodele, harped on the decolonisation of education research and technology in Africa.
On his part, the Director of Distance, Open and eLearning of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Odedina Kayode, lamented the problem of access in the Nigerian university system both in terms of materials and admission of students.
Odedina said while there are 201 universities in the country, only about 30 per cent from over a million candidates that apply for admission every year scale through the hurdles.
He, however, restated NUC’s commitment to take steps that will usher in easy access to materials and open learning to boost research output in the country.
Mr. Daryl Naylor of Digital Science, who also spoke at the event, assured of the readiness of his organisation to always support open access initiatives in Africa.
