By Daud Olatunji

About 20 tertiary institutions in Nigeria and Ghana, recently,  converged at Tai Solarin University of Education , Ijagun in Ijebu-Ode local government area of Ogun, to find a wayout to the challenges facing education in both countries. The event which was themed: Integration,   innovation and technology education for global development.

The Vice Chancellor, Tai Solarin University of Education , Ijagun, Prof. Oluyemisi Obilade in   her welcome address   cautioned authorities at the universities in Nigeria to shun   patronage of european universities in the area of collaboration to the detriment of   African universities.

Obilade , however, advised Universities stakeholders in Nigeria to partner with universities only in African continent,   adding that it makes sense to invest in African neighbours. Obilade while speaking on the conference explained that   TASUED decided to   partner   with University of Cape Coast with a view to ensuring that the University is recognised globally.

According to her, Africa is not inferior to other universities in other continents. Nigeria is found in every universities abroad. Nigerians are great,   we should develop our institution. At the end of the exercise, stakeholders in   the Nigerian tertiary institutions,  Ghana and Benin Republic agreed that the major factor militating against quality education is the failure to embrace indigenous technology.

Lecturers were drawn from University of Cape Coast,   UCC, Ghana,   TASUED,   Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ile-Ife, Gateway Polytechnic,   Saapade,   Institute of Technology,   Igbesa all in Nigeria among others for three days interdisciplinary conference.

The Ghanian delegation, led by Dr . Augustine Tawiah met with their Nigerian colleagues and agreed to partner with each other for the betterment of the continent. While declaring open the conference, the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of   TASUED, Prof. Olufemi Bamiro, urged the Federal and   state governments to adopt use of smart technology to confront economic recession .

Prof. Bamiro   said higher institutions must also imbibe the culture and practice of innovation towards the development of human capital with the requisite skills to drive the socio-economic development of the nation states.

“The positioning of education as the 4th goal of the Sustainable Development Goal,(SDG) agenda of the United Nations   has lent credence to the use of education by global leaders as the key   indicator of global development”, he said.

In his keynote address, Prof. Joel Babalola from Department of Educational Management, University of Ibadan, called for use of local language. He, however, said “it has been pointed out that Ghana approached her development by prioritizing education, technology and innovation without losing sight of other necessary pillars for building a strong competitive economy.

“On the other hand, Nigeria focused on the deepening of macroeconomic stability and market efficiency with minimal support for education, technology and innovation.

“As a result, Nigeria lagged behind Ghana in most indexes of development and particularly in her attempt to join the league of the 20 foremost competitive economies in the world. “It is generally believed that adequate inputs should be provided and efficiently managed to enable the formal education system perform its expected roles in national development and global competitiveness.

“Similarly, it is a common knowledge that an effective quality-assurance system should be in place to ensure that scientific knowledge are adequately and efficiently captured (or absorbed), created (or generated) and communicated (or applied) to local industry and global competitiveness.

“Technology is needed to tackle   various challenges facing Ghana and Nigeria.   At the same time, stability and incentives are basics to domestic generation of scientific knowledge through advanced indigenous human capital development such as creative R&D, registrations of patents and other Intellectual

“Ghana and Nigeria know that knowledge transfer from abroad needs an adaptive research before it can be applied locally.   So, they have made some efforts at developing the capacity of local scientists and engineers.

“They seem to be aware of the importance of creation and protection of indigenous knowledge as a critical factor for entrepreneurship and self-employability. “ Access to qualitative general education by a critical mass of population is required to adopt, adapt and apply transferred knowledge and technologies to solve local problems.

“Ghana and especially Nigeria should therefore, improve on their present efforts at capturing, creating, protecting and applying knowledge to solve practical problems at the local”, Babalola said.