The universe is governed by two eternal masters: rewards and punishments. When a man by his actions has proved his mettle, he should be commended and given due regards. This will add impetus to his momentum, thus sustaining the tempo to carry on with the arduous task which the complex art of his work demands. This explains why Executive Secretary of The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Prof Suleiman Elias Bogoro, deserves Education Research Man of the Year Award 2020.
TETFund is sacrosanct to Nigeria’s nation building efforts. And Tertiary Education and the Knowledge Society, as a vision, can help strengthen tertiary education research to make a significant contribution to the nation’s sustainable development. It then requires a lead and multi-talented academic like Prof Bogoro who is conversant with the principles and rules of the academic environment.
Justifiably, since his appointment as the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Prof Bogoro has refocused TETFund in pursuit of one of its core responsibilities of rehabilitating decaying infrastructure and the construction of new ones that are relevant to the development of learning in the nation’s public tertiary institutions.
Without a doubt, the Bauchi born prolific researcher, with his landmark transformation of processes and procedures at the TETFund has changed the narrative in Nigeria’s attempt to catchup with the rest of the world in terms of development.
Uncontestably, there is a universal consensus that scientific research is the core of national aspirations because therein lays the greatness of every nation. Great Britain was able to conquer the world because of its discovery of steam engine which helped its navigational power.
In the initial part of Prof Bogoro’s first tenure as the Executive Secretary of TETFund, his interest in research and development (R&D) led to the creation of the Department of Research and Development (R and D) at the TETFund.
Research is useless, if there is no synergy or links between universities and industry. That has been one of the priority areas of the Prof Bogoro led TETFund. More specifically, before the emergence of Prof Bogoro, research results laid and gathered dust on the shelves of our highier institutions; hence, his determination to create synergy between industry and research in order for research results to be useful.
Today, with the activities of TETFund under the leadership of Prof Bogoro, Nigeria is celebrating the impact and improved ranking of Nigerian higher institutions internationally because of nine years of intensive interventionist approach in the nation’s tertiary institutions.
Seeing the doggedness and sincerity of Prof Bogoro’s motives, President Muhammadu Buhari has over the last few years increased resource allocation to TETFund.
In the United States for instance, research universities are vital centres for the performance of research that advances knowledge in all science and engineering disciplines, contributing to the national economy as well as to local and regional economies. That the US university system today is undoubtedly the best in the world can be gauged by several indicators, including the number of Nobel Prizes awarded to faculty members, and the fact that US graduate schools are favoured destinations for aspiring scientists and engineers from abroad.
In Germany, the government places clear emphasis on higher education, research and high technology through numerous strategies and initiatives such as the Excellence Initiative (2005–2017) as well as its successor, the Excellence Strategy, the Internationalisation Strategy and the new High-Tech Strategy. Approximately, 30 per cent of spending on research and development in Germany is provided by federal and state governments. Government is thus the main sponsor of research in Germany alongside industry.
In the case of institutional funding, the government directly finances over 1,000 non-university research institutes and 240 public higher education institutions as well as the DFG research funding organisation. Over one third of all government funding is spent on this kind of financial support (9.3 billion euros in 2018).
In the United Kingdom, Research Councils and the funding bodies make up a dual support system. Research Councils provide grants for specific projects and programmes, while the funding bodies provide block grant funding to support the research infrastructure and enable institutions research of their choosing. Such funding also provides the capacity to undertake research commissioned by the private sector, charities, the European Union and other international bodies.
Like the above case studies, every government must develop a strong and long-standing commitment to the development of a prosperous and confident knowledge-based society. These are the ideals Prof Bogoro has committed himself to do to change the narrative of educational research n Nigeria!
To whom much is given, much is required. TETFund under Prof Bogoro has corroborated the authenticity of this axiom. President Muhammadu Buhari had approved an increase in the TETFund National Research Fund from N3.5billion to N7.5billion for the year 2020, making the agency the largest holder of research grants in Nigeria.
The cumulative effect of this budgetary increase is that that TETFund had within this period funded 80 auditorium lecture theatres, 500 classrooms, 2383 administrative and staff offices and 250 science laboratories across beneficiary institutions in the country.
Also funded were 40 fully equipped libraries, 38 ICT centres, 8medical centres and bays, 100 vehicles for academic field research trips and provision of major infrastructure in the 12 newly established federal universities. To further consolidate on TETFund’s achievements, the Fund made provision in its 2020 Budget for emergency special intervention to the University of Abuja and special high impact projects to six universities, one from each geo-political zone.
TETFund also provided take–off grants to six newly created federal polytechnics and six colleges of education in each geo-political zone among other projects.
The budgetary increase also provided an opportunity for TETFund to be at the forefront of the fight against the global pandemic in Nigeria by providing 12 COVID-19 and related infectious diseases molecular laboratories, two in each geopolitical zone, making the Fund the highest single provider of COVID-19 test centres in Nigeria. TETFund also sponsored some COVID-19 Research proposals to the tune of over N200million, mainly from Universities and NAFDAC, which is one of the reasons the Fund has recently been made the secretariat for the Nigeria COVID-19 Research.
This is just to mention a few that TETFund under Bogoro has achieved in the year 2020. With the right man in place and supporting funding, it is only a matter of time before Nigeria will begin to reap massive development through research.
Ibrahim is director, Communications and Strategic Planning, of the Presidential Support Committee (PSC).
