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Need for African Countries to Fund Education that Instigate Innovation

Anyone who knows how public and private institutions/universities are run in advanced and advancing economies would tell Nigerian political leaders that they have falling short of their responsibility and are failed posterity/ unborn and current generation of university-age Nigerians with the way they have starved and are starving our institutions with funding support

Public universities in the US survive PRIMARILY on funding support from State and Federal governments, through a direct and competitive approach of research grant - I know because I work in one. They do make some small money from IGR that come from IP (commercializing inventions); Tickets and TV rights from sporting activities (American Football, Baseball, and Basket Ball, etc.); parking tickets; student housing; etc. They also g money from donations and endowments. These monies are insignificant compared to the funding they receive from the government. No university can survive on IGR anywhere - the society benefits from the brains that are trained in these institutions, so they need to pay the schools bills.

State and Federal research grants are open to both public and private institutions, that is why universities like Cornell, Yale, and Harvard, that are private universities, receive hundreds of millions of dollars in grant money every year.

Using the United States as a case point, Federal and State governments in the US have been reaping the benefits of funding research in ALL institutions in the US through jobs that are created, taxes that are paid by these companies that have been founded from IPs that were incubated in the pots of many Universities. Many of the brightest ideas that have changed our world today came out of the US - internet, social media, smartphones, to mention a few. This is the system that operates in Canada, UK, Frances, and even China. South Africa is doing same now and many Nigerians are benefiting.

No African nation will emerge out of poverty without supporting educational development at every level, especially at the university level. South Africa is leading the way, that is why brilliant Nigerian minds are flocking there. There is no reason Nigerian governments (state and federal) should not fund our universities, not just to pay salaries, but to instigate research focused on discovery. Nigeria spends more on other useless stuff like budgeting N86 million to cut Buhari's hair than spending it on research grant at the leading public University in Nigeria, the University of Ibadan in one year.

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