Promoting Industry-University Partnership in Information Technology

It is becoming increasingly difficult for Nigerian universities to go it alone in terms of serving as a citadel of learning, coping with the huge wage bill and competing with their peers in other parts of the world, due to competitive, economic and other pressures. As a consequence, Nigerian universities are left with no option than to carry their industrial partners along in terms of research and development through the formation of partnerships for their mutual benefit. Since the industries are established for profit making and the universities for knowledge enhancement, such partnerships would help in spreading the costs in terms of provision of knowledge and costs of research. This paper discusses the various types of partnerships involving industries and universities, the benefits derived and a possible model for the working of such a partnership which could be adapted to other sectors and countries in sub-Saharan Africa.