- The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) says the seed grant for its book development intervention in higher education institutions has been increased from N2.9billion to N4.9 billion to ensure massive development of manuscripts into quality academic publications in the country
The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) says the seed grant for its book development intervention in higher education institutions has been increased from N2.9billion to N4.9 billion to ensure massive development of manuscripts into quality academic publications in the country
Executive Secretary of TETFund, Prof Suleiman Bogoro, who made this known while inaugurating the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) on Book Development Fund in Abuja on Thursday, described as worrisome the downward trend in academic publications in Nigeria.
“The quality of book publication has been terribly low in Nigeria. You go around the city or even at the federal secretariat, vendors sell anything and call it book. We have the responsibility to stop it and change the narrative.
“A seed grant of N2billion was approved by the Board of Trustees for Book Development Fund, which is being utilized centrally for the development of manuscripts into textbooks. Subsequently, an additional sum of N2.95billion was added to the seed grant, making a total of N4.95billion, out of which N2.58billion has been utilized for the intended purpose,” Bogoro said.
He called on members of TAG, who are academics drawn from the six geo-political zones of the country, to ensure that only quality books are churned out in the nation’s higher education sub-sector.
“It is expected that nurturing the culture of quality authorship and the production of indigenous books will not only ensure the availability of relevant books in diverse subject areas that take cognizance of our local environment and sensitivities, it would safeguard national pride,” he said.
Speaking further, Bogoro said TETFund through the Book Development Fund has completed the construction of four Academic Publishing Centres (APCs) in four universities in the country while three others will soon be completed.
He listed the terms of reference of Technical Advisory Group to include; harvest doctorate theses and masters dissertation from across beneficiary institutions for possible conversion to books; screen proposals on manuscripts, theses and dissertations for development into textbooks; advise TETFund on submissions of professional associations to support production of learned journals, among others.
Responding, the chairman of Technical Advisory Group, Prof. Charles Awo, expressed the readiness of the group to deliver on its mandate, adding that the situation where most universities publishing houses now concentrate on the production of obituaries, invitation cards and almanacs instead of quality textbooks called for serious concerns.
“Top universities in the world made their names through book publications, Yale, Oxford, Havard,…., just name them,” Prof. Awo said.
