By; SANI ALIYU, Zaria.
The Director, College of Science and Technology, Kaduna Polytechnic, Dr. A.O. Lawal has called on the government to consider a greater proportion of education expenditure to be devoted to Science and Technology and a greater attention should be paid to the development of scientific orientation.
He made the call during a paper presentation at the National Conference organized by the School of Applied Sciences, Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic, Zaria held at the school Assembly Hall on.
Dr. Lawal said, it is a common knowledge that decades after the objectives were set out to improve the standard of education in the country, not only have none of the objectives been realized but also the standard of education has fallen far below what it used to be.
According to him, some aspects of government’s policy on science and Technology shall form the basis for our development and shall influence our thinking and working processes.
He said, Nigeria must ensure adequate development of manpower in Science and Technology to guarantee the efficient utilization of abundant natural resources and reduce the drain on our treasury, and independence on outside sources for industrialization.
The Director advised government to facilitate and ensure the emergence of large pool of technologically empowered small and medium enterprises as a means of achieving sustainable economic growth, eradicating poverty and play a key role in the global economy.
“The policy should be able to come up with a conceptual framework for identifying industrial technology extension providers and activities for the small and medium size manufacturing enterprises”.
“There is the need for government to place greater emphasis on achieving value for money on its expenditure on research, this demands increase in activities on research and development evaluation as well as strengthening of infrastructure for information and knowledge dissemination” he stressed.
