Professor Ayo Banjo, Chairman, Governing Board of the National Universities Commission, recently came down hard on the universities, saying that Nigerian universities could only boast of producing sachet water and bread. Prof. Banjo who was speaking at a two-day retreat for the Governing Boards of federal universities said while highly ranked universities around the globe were advancing their scope of academics and research, to evolve better ideas for changing the world, Nigerian universities were still trapped in the ordinary task of boosting their Internally Generated Revenue.
He also accused them of selling honorary degrees to undeserving Nigerians while relegating their core objectives of producing quality graduates that could take up the task of nation building. It is sad that many universities in the country now pay more attention to boosting their IGR following the inadequate funding they get from their owners. Inadequate funding is not limited to the private universities only; it also affects the federal universities. In spite of the shortage of funding for the universities, the managers of the universities, that is, the governing boards and the Vice Chancellors must keep them going. In doing this, they are forced to look at new ways of generating funding for running their universities.
The blame for the shortage of funding of universities should be put at door steps of the owners of the universities, that is, the federal, state and private owners of universities and not at the door steps of the Governing Boards and the Vice Chancellors.
It is true that some of the universities, particularly the first generation universities have a store of research projects done by their students and lecturers over the years which could be sold to entrepreneurs looking for new businesses to do. In fact, if the universities had patented some of their research findings they could have made far more money from a few of them than they are doing now from their bakeries and sachet water factories.
In the advanced world most of the new products that we are buying today are the outcomes of research by students and lecturers in the universities and many research laboratories. In fact, nothing stops any of the universities from setting up their own research institutes where they can churn out new products, patent such new products and make more money than they are now making from ordinarily baking bread.
Time was when the first generation universities were hot beds of production of new hybrid seeds, disease resistant seeds, new engineering products that could revolutionize production of industrial materials and many others. Unfortunately, they did not go beyond the production of prototypes which they ought to market at trade fairs and to special audiences across the nation and beyond for adoption and mass production.
Prof. Banjo must not be blamed for coming down so heavily on the universities governing boards and their Vice-Chancellors. Prof. Banjo is troubled and concerned. He wants to see changes in the universities. He wants to see improvement in their academic and research focus output which they can in turn patent and sold to manufacturing companies outside or go into joint ventures with such companies to commercialise their patents.
Going forward, universities governing councils and their senates must think outside the box on the way forward to improving their ratings among global universities and how to better positively contribute to the growth of the country. They must also think outside the box on how to commercialise some of the research findings they now hold. This will enable them to shore up their IGR and also have something to point to when they are accused of not contributing much to the nation’s development.
There is nothing new under the sun. There are universities overseas which the management of our local universities can copy and see how they have turned the outcomes of their research into tangible things and patents before they were commercialised.
The country is faced with the problem of diversification of its economy into agriculture, solid minerals, manufacturing and other areas so that it can drastically cut down on the foreign exchange that it pays out on those things that it can grow or manufacture at home. Nigeria is looking at how it can acquire simple agricultural implements that can be used to increase agricultural production. The country is looking at simple technologies that can be used to turn our minerals into new products.
