UNESCO SCIENCE REPORT

West Africa
Box 18.4: Taxing business to upgrade tertiary education in Nigeria
One of the strategies outlined in Nigeria’s
Science, Technology and Innovation
Policy (2011) is for funding frameworks
to be set up with various partners.
One such framework is the TETFund.
It was established under the Tertiary
Education Trust Fund Act of 2011
to serve as the agency responsible
for managing and disbursing tax funds
to public tertiary institutions. It is also
responsible for monitoring the utilization
of funds.
Under the fund, a 2% education tax is
imposed on the assessable profits of all
registered companies in Nigeria. TETFund
then disburses 50% of the money to
universities, 25% to polytechnics and
25% to teachers’ colleges. Grants are
provided for the purchase of essential
physical infrastructure for teaching
and learning, research and publication
and academic staff training and
development.
Source: www.tetfund.gov.ngt
because we have no choice.’ The aim is to transform Nigerians
into ‘science and technology thinking entities.’
The policy also recommended founding a National Research
and Innovation Council. This was effectively established in
February 2014. Membership includes the federal ministers
of science and technology; education; information and
communications technology; and environment.
The emphasis in STI is on space science and technology,
biotechnology and renewable energy technologies. Although
Nigeria has had a National Biotechnology Development
Agency since 2001, the National Biosafety Management
Agency Bill lingered in parliament for years; the bill was finally
passed in 2011 but was still awaiting presidential consent in
early 2015.
In 2012, an International Centre for Biotechnology was
established under the auspices of UNESCO at the University
of Nigeria in Nsukka. The institute provides high-level training
(including at subregional level), education and research,
particularly in areas related to food security, conservation of
harvested crops, gene banking and tropical diseases.
Some key goals of the Science, Technology and Innovation
Policy are to:
n develop an endogenous capability in launching and
exploiting Nigeria’s own satellites (it already has three) for
telecommunications and research;
n run advanced field trials of genetically modified crops
designed to increase agricultural productivity and food
security (see also Box 18.1);
n promote solar technology systems as dependable
back-ups to the national grid and to address energy
needs in marginalized communities;
n promote the design and use of local construction
materials and a ‘green construction culture’ through the
development of ‘green homes’ and ‘green cement;’
n establish or develop technology transfer offices to improve
intellectual property protection and thereby encourage
industrial R&D;
n build the Sheda Science and Technology Complex
(SHESTCO) in Abuja within the Silicon Valley Project,
which is developing a high-tech capability in ICTs,
materials science, solar and new technologies, along with
skills in engineering and maintenance. In a visit to the
complex in October 2014, the Federal Minister of Science
and Technology, Dr Abdu Bulama, pledged to ‘do everything
under our mandate to ensure Silicon Valley becomes a
reality. Hence, we are partnering with UNESCO, Poland
and other international bodies to fast-track the
process.’
The success of Nigeria’s ambitious programme will rest on its
strategy for developing human resources (Box 18.4). Nigeria
currently has 40 federal universities, 39 state universities and
50 private universities, according to the Nigeria Universities
Commission. There are also 66 polytechnics, 52 monotechnics
and about 75 research institutes.
Despite this, federal spending on R&D in 2007 represented
only about 0.22% of GDP, according to the UNESCO
Institute for Statistics, and over 96% of this was provided
by the government. These statistics should improve as
implementation of the Science, Technology and Innovation
Policy progresses.
Economic diversification an urgent necessity
The president has implemented two schemes to support
the economy since 2010:
n With power outages costing the Nigerian economy
billions of dollars each year, the president launched a
Roadmap for Power Sector Reform in 2010. Central to
this scheme has been the privatization of the state
electricity provider, the Power Holding Company of
Nigeria, which has been broken up into 15 different
companies.
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