In this piece, NGOZI OBOH writes on the efforts by the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) to assist in producing scientists and engineers who are capable of translating research results to goods and services required in the market place.
National Agency for science and engineering infrastructure (NASENI) is set to nuture a dynamic science infrastructure base for achieving homebred industrialization process.
To realize this, the agency is promoting a training curriculum in three strategic areas of Advanced Manufacturing Technology Techniques (AMT) for postgraduate studies.
The project is being by sponsored by the World Bank under its Science, Technology Education Post- Basic (STEP-B) programme and the key areas identified as critical include Nanotechnology and Structural Materials; Machine Designs and Mechatronics and Electrical and Electronics Product Development.
When the curriculum is in place, students are expected to identify specific areas of need in Industry, develop problem solving methods in such areas in order to directly impact on the socio-economic need of society using the AMT. This is aimed to promote market-driven innovative scientific researches.
In order to ensure seamless execution of the project, NASENI had hosted Nigeria Engineers, Industrialists, Academia, Small Scale business entrepreneurs and other stakeholders of the science and technology sector to a two-day forum in Calabar, Cross River? State to deliberate further on the draft curriculum.
Outgoing NASENI director -general, Prof. Olusegun Adewoye said the main thrust of the? meeting was to provide opportunity for industrialists and small scale business operators to make input into curriculum development “because we want them (the industrialists) to tell us the qualities they want in our graduates,” he said.
“We want the graduates themselves to be creators of employment instead of being employees. If they know what industry needs and we embed it into their training and curriculum, by the time they come out, they should be able to be job creators.”
Adewoye hinted on the possibility of financing the best project to translate into a cottage industry, stressing that Industry must make an input? into this curriculum since that was the way it worked all over the world.
He noted that research products should, henceforth, be market driven and said that success at the three strategic areas identified are so fundamental to others because “once you cover these areas, it will spill over to other areas.”
Adewoye also explained that the curriculum development is the real attempt at recreating the right environment for the talents in young Nigerian science graduates to be directed at industry with its attendant benefits to grow the national economy.
He said the time has come for Nigerians to fight shipment of jobs abroad headlong and noted that?? for every foreign product, goods and services consumed by Nigerians locally, the same amount of jobs created from such consumption had been exported unawares.???
Managing Director of Vitafoam Nigeria Plc, Dr. Dele Makanjuola, at the forum expressed conviction about the essential need for collaboration between the academia and the industry.
Makanjuola highlighted the practical industry experience about how almost all the technologies utilized in Nigeria’s manufacturing sector were imported but was surprised that an agency like NASENI and other research institutions in Nigeria? can provide similar technologies at cost-effective rates.
He identified poor linkages as well as consistent demonstration of lack of capacity by Nigeria research institutes to deliver efficient process equipment to the industry on time as reasons for the yawning gap between the laboratory and the marketplace.
He also expressed satisfaction with the innovative research and development work, designs and process equipment or prototypes emanating from all nine NASENI’s institutes which were previewed at the forum.
“If NASENI has achieved this much, the least it can do first is rebranding. The agency should come up with strategies for rebranding. Without effective communication and promotion of what NASENI is doing, many would think the Agency does not add value to the economy,” he advised.?
But for the President of the Nigeria Academy of Engineering, Edet Amana, linking research outputs with the industries is not realizable until government invests maximally into research and development.? According to him, the intensity of research and expenditure measured as the percentage of GDP is a good indicator of the country’s economy.
For highly developed countries, the R&D intensity is in the range of 3.98 per cent to two per cent. China, India, South Africa and Nigeria have R & D intensities of 1.4 per cent, 1.2 per cent, 0.7 per cent and 0.06 per cent respectively.
He stated the need to fund research through the university system and the national research institutes, just as he lauded the promotion of curriculum for the new postgraduate courses in three universities.
“Every investment in the development of nanotechnology, mechatronics, material science, and electrical and electronics products development is worthwhile investment. The future belongs to nanotechnology.
“NASENI has got it right when it is launching a project of specialized technological manpower training. This is a step in the right direction. As stakeholders, in the technological nad engineering advancement of this nation, we are gathered here to assist NASENI to articulate the focus and content of the curriculum of studies.”
Representative of STEP-B at the forum, Mr. Ben Nwanze, described NASENI as one of the core institutions that have benefitted from STEP-B project.
Nwanze who commended NASENI for prudence in the use of lean resources for technological advancement said “out of 11 centres of excellence supported by STEP-B, NASENI has amazed us”
Secretary of the Nigerian Association of Women Enterpreneurs, FCT chapter, Patricia Onoja, noted that promoting capacity building through the courses being introduced would mean reduction in influx of foreign engineering products into the country.
On his part, the Assistant Chief Registrar at Council for the Registration of Engineers in Nigeria (COREN), Shuaibu Aliyu, expressed the readiness of the Council to ensure that the three courses were accredited at the right time and to ensure that standards are maintained.?
Acting director of Engineering Materials Development Institute (EMDI), Akure, Dr. Gbenga Olunshil said the outcome of the stakeholders forum would be made available to the curriculum committee who will in turn implement them and ensure that the three courses are introduced in Federal University of Technology, Owerri; Obafemi Awolowo University, and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi.
“There is the curriculum development committee on its own waiting for this input we are collecting. We will now use that in conjunction with what we had with the universities as working material for the curriculum development committee proper.”
?NASENI, according to him, will provide all the equipment required for the new MSc programme in advanced manufacturing technology through funding from the World Bank.
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