The Chairman, Board of Trustees (BOT) of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Alh. Kashim Ibrahim-Imam, has reiterated TETFund’s commitment towards ensuring that all the newly-built Academic Publishing Centres across the country commence operation soon.
He gave this assurance when he led other TETFund BOT members, members of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) and heads of beneficiary public tertiary institutions in the North Central, to assess the publishing centre of federal University of technology, Minna (FUTMinna).
Ibrahim-Imam said the purpose of the exercise was for the BoT, in collaboration with the members of TAG and other beneficiary institutions, to discuss and deliberate on the best way of operating, managing and sustaining the centre.
According to him, the Academic Publishing Centres’ intervention across the country was based on the submission made by TETFund BoT in 2009, to the federal government to earmark two billion naira for Higher Education Book Development Project to take off in 2009.
“One of the primary objectives of the Higher Education Book Development Project was to design, construct and equip model Academic Publishing Centres (APCs) in selected institutions, and link their activities and services to the Public Tertiary Institutions within the geo-political zone, to serve as publishers of academic textbooks,” the BoT chairman said.
On his part, the Executive Secretary, TETFund, Professor Suleiman Elias Bogoro, noted that the publishing centres would address the paucity of indigenously-authored tertiary level textbooks and related academic publications in higher institutions.
“Overtime, publication of indigenous academic texts are done outside the shore of Nigeria. Hence, we have our books being published in U.K., India, U.S.A, etc, with the attendant consequences of the pressure in the demand for foreign currency.
It is equally worrisome that the quality of most academic publications in our country leaves much to be desired.
“It is therefore expected that nurturing the culture of quality authorship and the production of indigenous books will not only ensure the availability of relevant books in the diverse subject areas that take cognizance of our local environment and sensitivities, it will also safeguard our national pride and reduce the demand on foreign exchange,” Bogoro said.
In his welcome address, FUTMinna vice chancellor, Professor Abdullahi Bala, lauded TETFund for establishing the Academic Publishing Centre, expressing hope that the outcome of the stakeholders’ meeting would define the operational mode of the centre.
He praised TETFund for its various interventional supports for the development of public tertiary institutions, across the country.
Bala, later took dignitaries at the event on a tour of the centre for them to have first-hand information on the state of the building, and other things needed to be put in place for effective operation of the centre.
Photo CAPTION: FUTMinna management and TETFund delegation at the centre.
