Unilorin VC urges African countries to adequately fund education

Prof. Wahab Egbewole, SAN, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Ilorin has urged African countries to adequately fund education as done in advance countries of the world.

The university bulletin issued on Tuesday quotes Egbewole as making the appeal when presenting the position of Association of West African Universities (AWAU) at the 2023 edition of the Conference of Rectors, Vice Chancellors and Presidents of African Universities in Windhoek, Namibia.

The VC who is also the Secretary-General of the AWAU, urged the countries in the continent to collaborate with others across the world in order to enhance mutual progress and development.

His presentation was entitled: “AWAU Position Paper on Africa Charter for Transformative Research Collaborations”.

Egbewole insisted that African countries must always bring something to the table as a way of collaborating with others.

“That is the only way they can be respected at the global level,” the don said.

He said that as long as Africa did not adequately fund education and research, its efforts in the two realms would never be properly acknowledged or captured by the rest of the world.

The VC stressed that uneven playing field in Africa-global production of scientific knowledge may remain unchanged if the global south failed to develop a new framework of limit of dependence on dissemination or funding of its research efforts.

He added that the global south needed strong system and to project its scholars, as well as higher education system as being capable of generating idea that is not weak in theorizing and justifying the outcomes.

Egbewole stated that Africa must be deliberate in creating regional structure and research centres to coordinate and ensure incubation, standardisation of concepts, intellectual property contribution, protection, and provide guidance on different kinds of partnership and collaboration.

He also justified the significance of data in every research endeavour, adding that an engaged partner should also be properly acknowledged at all stages of collaboration.

The publication added that the conference witnessed the conferment of an award on a former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC) Prof. Peter Okebukola.