The Centre for Dryland Agriculture, CDA, Bayero University, Kano, on Monday played host to over 50 key partners, private sectors, industries, development partners and government agencies
DAILY NIGERIAN reports that the collaboration is aimed at addressing the constraints of University-industry partnership and find ways of enhancing the relationship for improved research output utilization and productivity.
In his opening remark, the Director of the Centre, Professor Jibrin M. Jibrin, said that the Academia and industry share a symbiotic relationship.
According to him, the academia produces graduates who are absorbed by industry and research work in universities are taken up by the industry and turned into products and services.
“Similarly, industry on the other hand looks to academia for solutions to their concerns,” he said.
Mr Jibrin said that the interaction would address critical areas such that universities tailor programmes and research activities to turn out graduates whose skill-sets are aligned to industry requirements.
He said it would also identify other areas in terms of research, laboratory facilities in which the centre would provide services to industries and private sectors.
“I hope at the end of this meeting, we will try to understand some of the constraints faced by the industries in respect to human resources and how we address them in terms of either short or long term training or by changing the way we train our undergraduate and postgraduate students,” the Director said.
Also speaking, the Deputy Director, Publication and Outreach, Dr. Amina Mustapha said the centre is built on a tripod of research, training and outreach and that it has so far signed MoUs with over 30 partners in Nigeria, Africa and the world at large.
According to him, these partners spread across disciplines, including universities from United States of America, U.K, Egypt, Kenya and the Niger Republic.
DAILY NIGERIAN reports that the interaction recommended that the centre should develop short courses’ training to get industry staff to have access and improve their skills.
It was also recommended that the centre should propagate Napier grass using tissue culture technology to aid in animal feed formulation, as it has been one of the grasses to be adopted by the federal government in the ranching system.
It was advised that there was a need to establish mini-processing plants for teaching and research to enable students to cope with industries outside and that the Centre should review its curriculum to suit the needs of the private sector.
