A Professor of Educational Management, Olusola Aina, has urged the management of universities to provide adequate funds for research and publications to enable lecturers to improve in teaching, capacity development and contributions to nation-building.
The professor also urged that research activities should be well-monitored,/ and evaluated to ensure a strong commitment to academic excellence and minimise wastage.
Aina, of the Department of Educational Management, Lagos State University, made the call at the 82nd Inaugural Lecture of the institution on Tuesday.
The lecture had the theme: “Management and Leadership in The University: Dilemma or Titillation to Nation Building”.
He said that adequate funds for research would also help to meet global technological needs.
“All research activities should be adequately supervised and evaluated to ensure a strong commitment to academic excellence and minimise wastage in the system.
“Management of universities in Nigeria should make efforts to internationalise their activities through collaborative linkages in research and staff and student exchange programmes.
“University education is a pillar for sustainable nation-building in any country.
“The way forward for nation-building in Nigeria hinges on a change of attitude of citizens through service delivery provided by all levels of education, including universities,” Aina said.
Aina urged that school curricula should be made relevant to the history of Nigeria as a country.
“Nigerian pupils and students need to be taught the values of authentic leadership and effective and efficient management of human and non-human resources.
“It is evident that educational reforms proffer a veritable tool for ensuring socio-political and economic transformation of nations, Nigeria inclusive.
“It is glaring that most educational reforms in Nigeria have not been so successful due to specific factors, prominent among which is policy flip-flops,” he said.
Aina said that national identity was a process of constructing a national identity using the state’s power to achieve national integration.
“For a long time, one of Nigeria’s wrongdoings was attributed to leadership and management failures in building a strong nation devoid of defective political, social and economic structures,” he said.
Aina added that nation-building could take time to achieve and would be a continuous process to be constantly reviewed depending on the changes in the immediate and global environments.
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