The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has taken another step towards strengthening Nigeria’s higher education sector with the establishment of a modern academic publishing centre at Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK), Awka, Anambra State.
The facility is expected to improve the production of locally published textbooks, research materials and other scholarly resources while providing public tertiary institutions across the South-East with access to modern printing and publishing infrastructure.
The centre, which was officially commissioned on Friday, is part of a broader Federal Government initiative aimed at developing Nigeria’s indigenous academic publishing industry and addressing the challenges associated with producing educational materials locally.
Chairman of the TETFund Board of Trustees, Aminu Bello Masari, who was represented at the commissioning ceremony by the board’s South-East representative, Esther Ukachukwu, described the project as an important component of the Fund’s commitment to improving the quality and accessibility of educational resources in the country.
The publishing facility was established under TETFund’s Higher Education Book Development Project, which seeks to encourage Nigerian academics to produce textbooks and other intellectual materials that can support teaching, learning and research within tertiary institutions.
Through the initiative, the Fund intends to create an enabling environment for local authors, lecturers, researchers and other education professionals to publish their works without depending excessively on foreign publishing companies and facilities.
The intervention also seeks to address longstanding concerns about the availability of relevant academic textbooks and the challenges faced by Nigerian scholars in getting their research findings and intellectual contributions published and distributed.
Providing details about the project’s development, Masari disclosed that the Federal Government initially approved N2 billion for the programme in 2009.
He explained that another N2.95 billion was subsequently provided in 2019 to strengthen the initiative and support the establishment of the proposed publishing facilities across the country.
According to him, the funding arrangements were part of deliberate efforts to ensure that the project moved beyond policy formulation and translated into practical infrastructure capable of serving the needs of Nigeria’s higher education system.
He further recalled that the Technical Advisory Group Committee overseeing the initiative was re-inaugurated in August 2019 to improve its coordination and strengthen the process of implementation.
The committee’s reconstitution was intended to provide additional technical guidance and ensure that the objectives of the Higher Education Book Development Project were properly pursued.
Under the programme’s implementation framework, academic publishing centres are expected to be established across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones, with an additional facility designated for the Federal Capital Territory.
The centres are designed to serve public universities, polytechnics and colleges of education by providing access to professional printing and publishing services.
With the establishment of the Awka facility, tertiary institutions in the South-East are expected to benefit from improved access to publishing infrastructure, potentially making it easier for academics to transform their research findings, lecture materials and original manuscripts into published educational resources.
Masari, however, emphasised that the success of the intervention would depend largely on how well the facilities were managed after their commissioning.
He urged the management of Nnamdi Azikiwe University and other beneficiary institutions to ensure that the centre becomes fully operational and remains accessible to the institutions it was established to serve.
He also stressed the importance of proper maintenance, effective administration and long-term planning to prevent the facility from losing its relevance after the initial excitement surrounding its inauguration.
According to him, sustaining the investment would be necessary to guarantee that the objectives behind the Federal Government’s financial commitment were achieved.
Responding to the development, UNIZIK Vice-Chancellor, Professor Bond Anyaehie, assured TETFund that the university would give the facility the necessary administrative attention to ensure its effective operation.
Anyaehie expressed the institution’s readiness to manage the centre responsibly and establish working arrangements that would enable other public tertiary institutions within the South-East to benefit from its services.
He indicated that the university recognised the regional importance of the project and would not restrict its operations to the immediate needs of UNIZIK.
The vice-chancellor’s position reflects the broader objective of the intervention, which is to establish publishing infrastructure capable of supporting academic activities beyond individual institutions.
He also used the occasion to appeal to TETFund for additional intervention projects to address the developmental needs of Nnamdi Azikiwe University and other tertiary institutions in the South-East.
The appeal comes amid continuing demands for improved infrastructure, research facilities, teaching resources and other essential investments required to strengthen the country’s higher education institutions.
The newly commissioned centre is equipped with modern printing machines and other specialised facilities designed to support the production of academic textbooks and scholarly publications.
Its equipment is expected to provide the technical capacity required to handle different aspects of the publishing process, offering academics and institutions an opportunity to produce educational materials locally.
The development could also contribute to strengthening the relationship between research and publishing by creating a more accessible platform through which academic knowledge can be documented, reproduced and circulated.
For lecturers and researchers, the availability of such infrastructure could provide additional opportunities to publish their intellectual works, while students and other members of the academic community may benefit from improved access to relevant learning materials.
More broadly, the initiative represents an effort to strengthen local participation in the academic publishing industry, encourage knowledge production and improve the resources available to Nigeria’s tertiary education sector.
However, the extent of its impact will depend on the university’s ability to maintain the equipment, establish efficient operational arrangements and ensure that institutions across the region can access its services.
The commissioning of the UNIZIK centre therefore marks an important stage in TETFund’s academic publishing programme, with its long-term value expected to be measured by the volume of scholarly materials produced and the number of institutions that benefit from the facility.
Ireport247news
About The Author
