The British Council in Nigeria has provided training on implementing a robust national innovation system to adopt entrepreneurial development within Nigerian universities.
Ian Attfield, the Senior Education Advisor at the British High Commission in Abuja, discussed this in a press briefing during a training session which took place in Abuja,. The theme was “Enhancing Nigeria’s National Innovation System.”
Representing the Ministry of Education, Andrew Adejo, the Permanent Secretary, highlighted the program’s objective of not only fostering effective mechanisms but also enhancing relationships and connections among participants within the national innovation system.
Nairametrics gathers that the trainings had in attendance representatives of the federal ministry of education, the National University Commission (NUC), and other pertinent stakeholders.
What he said
Ian Attfield emphasized innovation is needed in Nigeria’s educational system using the UK as a benchmark. He said,
- “Nigeria has a significant opportunity to leapfrog. Just as we talked about sort of leapfrogging land landlines and analogue telephone straight to mobile and digital systems.
- “There are many lessons that can be applied. We’re not saying the UK blueprint should be copied. It has to be indigenous,” he said.
Addressing a significant concern within the education landscape, Prof. Temitayo Shenkoya, Director of Higher Education at the British Council, emphasized the lack of communication among stakeholders as a prominent issue.
He noted that this communication gap had resulted in the rejection of Nigeria’s curricula. To remedy this, a collaborative effort was made to bring together key stakeholders for networking and dialogue, with the goal of bridging this gap.