Science, technology, engineering to drive Nigeria’s 21st century growth

Against the backdrop of recent findings that human and intellectual capital is the main source of value and competitive advantage in the 21st century economy, industry watchers are of the view that only a strategic investment in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) is the way forward for Nigeria if it ever hopes to be relevant in the global competition.

Concerned industry experts in the fields of education and human resources consulting and training observe that advanced and emerging economies have long embraced the use of science and technology-related aspect of learning to develop their economy, but regret that the same cannot be said of Nigeria with the largest GDP in Africa.

They query a situation where the country with its huge population has consistently failed to tap into the huge opportunities that science, technology, engineering and mathematics courses have to offer.

Isaac Adeyemi, vice chancellor, Bells University of Technology, Ota, Ogun State, tells BusinessDay in an interview that programmes like Bio Technology, Genetic Engineering, Mechatronics and even Bio Medical Engineering are areas that Nigeria benefit from with the right kind of strategic investment.

He observes that Information Communication and Technology (ICT) is very important because it is applicable to all fields of specialisation, be it science or engineering, pointing out that it should be one of the prerogatives of government to fund such programmes.

He maintains that educational institutions on their part should ensure that their curricula are dynamic, bearing in mind that the students are in future going to be managers of the economy, managers of technology and need to be well groomed. Anderson Ezeibe, Chemistry lecturer at Federal Polytechnic Nekede, says strategic investment in courses in science and technology is the driving force of development in advanced economies, while also expressing concern over the drifting of polytechnics away from their natural forte, which is science and technology.

“The polytechnics are drifting off the courses they are supposed to be majoring in. Polytechnics are supposed to be majors in technical areas science, technology, and engineering. But today every polytechnic is offering courses in business administration. Why is this so? Because of failure in regulation, because of poor funding, they are scrabbling for funds from students,” he says.

He further regrets that the enrolment figures for science and technology courses in the country are on the decline as students are not doing well again in science-related fields owing to obsolete laboratory equipment.

On his part, Pascal Odibo, group country director, Jeff and O’Brien, an international knowledge development firm, reveals that the reason some nations are greater than the others has nothing to do with what is under their soil in terms of natural resources, but it has everything to do with how they have been able to galvanise their human capital. “Until Nigeria begins to use her natural resources to develop sustainable resources which are her people, the country will keep frittering it away,” he says.

He says the challenge Nigeria has is that it keeps investing in facilities and on physical infrastructure, adding that if the government spends one-tenth of the amount of money it spends on infrastructure on human infrastructure, it will make a whole lot more sense.

KELECHI EWUZIE