By Adedapo Adesanya
The Minister of Education, Mr Olatunji Alausa, has reaffirmed the government’s commitment to fostering innovation, research, and skills development as critical tools for addressing Nigeria’s economic and developmental challenges.
He made this disclosure while speaking during a press briefing ahead of the maiden TETFund National Research Fair and Exhibition on Sunday at Eagle Square in Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Mr Alausa said the initiative is to stress the government’s resolve to harness the potential of local research and innovation to create jobs for Nigerians, especially the youth.
The exhibition is themed Technologies for Massive Generation of Jobs and Wealth Creation for Young Nigerians and is scheduled to run from November 18-22.
The event aims to showcase research outputs and technological innovations from Nigerian universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, research institutes, and the military.
Acknowledging the disconnect between research outputs and market application, the minister outlined measures to bridge the gap.
He stressed the importance of engaging entrepreneurs to monetise research findings and fostering collaboration among stakeholders to create value chains that benefit Nigerians.
He stated that the administration is determined to translate research outputs into practical solutions across various sectors such as agriculture, healthcare, power, and water supply, and communication, amongst others.
In addition, he noted that the Tinubu administration has put substantial investment through TETFund to support research activities in public tertiary institutions in order to evolve solutions to many of the national development challenges.
“The agenda will be implemented based on local research and technology outputs, because nowhere in this world can economic good be achieved without the full use of the output of research and technology efforts,” he said.
Mr Alausa further disclosed plans to realign Nigeria’s educational system to meet the needs of the economy, outlining the ministry’s focus areas to include Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medical Sciences (STEMM), as well as Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET).
“We must now recondition and realign our educational system to equip our youth with life skills that make them useful to themselves, their communities, and the country,” he said.
He added that the ministry will also be focusing a lot on research and innovation, data and digitalisation, girl child education and out-of-school children.
The minister also unveiled a blueprint for overhauling Nigeria’s technical and vocational education system to equip young Nigerians with life skills.
He proposed a structure where 80 per cent of the curriculum will focus on practical, hands-on learning, with only 20 per cent dedicated to classroom instruction.
“First, our approach will incentivise people to go to our technical school. We will pay them to go to school, pay the tuition fee, pay the trainers and build capacity in those technical schools. During that training, it will be 20 per cent of didactics within the classroom, 80 per cent of learning on apprenticeship,” he said.