Okojie blames lack of policy, culture for poor research in varsities

The immediate past Executive Secretary of National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Julius Okojie has described lack of proper culture and policy as major constraint to research in Nigeria Universities.

Prof. Okojie who spoke to Daily Trust on Tuesday during his visit to Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra state as a special guest of the Institution’s Research Fair held at Chike Okoli Centre for Entrepreneurs as part of activities to mark its 13th Convocation ceremony.

The former NUC secretary said the country was not doing well in research because there were no proper developed culture and policy for research in Nigeria.

According to him, the Nigerian academics who are supposed to be doing researches are just writing single projects when they should be working as a team.

” We have not developed proper culture and policy in Nigeria for research. Our academics write single projects when they should be working as a team,” he lamented.

He also added that Nigeria’s academics lack the skills of writing quality research proposals,and urged them to do interdisciplinary research proposals rather than single project.

“Even the act of writing a proposal is difficult.They need to do interdisciplinary research proposals,” he advised.

Earlier in his speech,Okojie urged Nigerians to do research relevant to local needs of Nigerians, stressing that every research in the country must address a particular need.

“Today,we are not bordered about common research that touches on the lives of the people . Agriculture in the country is still in the rural communities.We must do research on how to help farmers work, harvest and preserve their products,” he said.

According to him, research in the country is not taken serious because we have not developed the proper philosophy and culture in our universities.

“You always hear academics saying there are no funds for research in Nigeria, When there are over N4 billion research money waiting for them at Tertiary Education Trust Funds . Some of them are not even aware that such research fund exist,” he said.