The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has tasked polytechnics across the country to initiate quality research proposals that will lead to commercial and innovative usage.
The Executive Secretary, TETFund, Mr. Sonny Echono stated this during an interactive meeting with Rectors and Directors of Research of Polytechnics on National Research Fund (NRF) grants in Abuja on Wednesday,
Echono decried the huge shortage of skills in critical sectors of the nation’s economy.
“We are not producing graduates that are fit for purpose, that meet the needs of the industry, that are ready to take up responsibility and contribute their quota upon engagement.”
According to him, TETFund wants to see polytechnics taking more active parts in solving society’s problems; in resolving the country’s developmental challenges and proffering solutions that will ease the various operations of the country.
The TETFund boss said that the country was in a situation where foreign concerns, foreign companies, foreign businesses were relocating out of the country under the guise of not having the right manpower to carry out their operations.
“We are having a situation where side-by-side there is very high graduate unemployment. It’s a huge shortage of skills in critical sectors of our national economy.
“It means we are not producing graduates that are fit for purpose, that meet the needs of the industry, that are ready to take up responsibility and contribute their quota upon engagement,” he added.
He, therefore, said the country continued to produce manpower that the current structure of the economy could no longer absorb.
The Executive Secretary, National Board For Technical Education (NBTE), Prof. Idris Bugaje stressed the need for synergy between polytechnics and universities on Innovative research.
Prof. Bugaje said research in Nigeria was not yielding desired results because those who were administering the researches had forgotten the role polytechnics played.
“Research and development is a topical issue. TETFund has created NRF to drive high level of research that can led innovation.
“Today in Nigeria, almost 99.9 per cent of these researches do not yield innovation. They end up as journal papers published in papers.
“Therefore, there must be synergy between universities and polytechnics if our research and development will lead to innovation,” he said.
Writing by Daniel Adejo