Dearth of varsity lecturers: Where are the PhD, First Class graduates? (2)

In a 2015 universities’ rank­ing, Webometrics, one of the leading online univer­sity ranking sites, named ten top universities in Nigeria to include University of Lagos, Obafemi Awolowo University, University of Ibadan, Univer­sity of Ilorin, Covenant Uni­versity, Federal University of Technology, Minna, Univer­sity of Nigeria, Nsukka, Uni­versity of Benin, University of Port Harcourt and the Ah­madu Bello University in that order. These are undoubtedly our best at the moment, but how many of them are among the world’s best 1000 universi­ties?

Universities worldwide are cited and ranked based on six performance indicators, out of which, academic repu­tation and research output (Citation) constitute 60 per cent. According to QS World Universities Rankings, they include Academic reputation (40 per cent), Citation per faculty (20 per cent), Student-to-faculty ratio (20 per cent), Employer reputation (10 per cent), International faculty ratio and International stu­dent ratio 5 per cent each.

Research is a profound intellectual activity that re­quires profound intellectual profundity to excel. 

It is too serious to be left in the hands of mediocre. When only 40 per cent of the brightest and the best brains are left to undertake the arduous task of teaching and research, it means that, the quality of our research output is not likely to exceed 40 per cent.

Plagiarism is a serious in­tellectual fraud that is viewed seriously in the academia. The monster has continued to im­pede our ability to compete favourably with other world class universities in terms of citation of research work in International Journals, as most products of intellectual fraud are recycled back into the system as lecturers.

While academic reputation is measured using a global survey in which academics are asked to identify the in­stitutions where they believe the best work is currently tak­ing place within their field of expertise, citation per faculty aims to assess universities re­search impact, which means a piece of research being cited or referred to within another piece of research.

Generally, the more often a piece of research is cited, the more influential it is and the more highly cited research papers a university publish­es, the stronger its research output is considered. This is undoubtedly a function of quality academic staff, as no university rises above the sub­stance of its staff.

Student-to faculty-ratio is a simple measure of the number of academic staff employed relative to the number of stu­dents enrolled. This indica­tor aims to identify universi­ties that are best equipped to provide small class sizes and a good level of individual su­pervision.

Dearth of critical scholars in the Nigerian university system has continued to force most universities in the coun­try to go to other friendly in­stitutions to borrow lecturers in order to meet the National Universities Commission (NUC) requirements. In most cases, instead of the stipulated fifteen or twenty lecturers re­quired for a programme to be accredited, most institutions boast of only five or seven permanent staff with visiting lecturers making up the re­maining number.

There is also the perennial problem of over admission in which more than two hundred students are admitted for a space for fifty students. A lec­turer is assigned to more than twenty undergraduates in ad­dition to scores of postgradu­ate students to supervise. This negates the principles of stu­dent-to-faculty ratio as there will be no proper supervision of projects and thesis. The im­plication is that, undergradu­ate and postgraduate research outputs lack originality as a result of unbridled academic fraud.

The subsisting criteria for accrediting degree pro­grammes in Nigerian univer­sities as published in NUC’s website include among others, quantity and quality of teach­ing staff, physical facilities, philosophy and objectives of programme, students admis­sion/retention and gradua­tion as well as adequate finan­cial support for the university and departments.

A cursory look at these cri­teria reveals that they con­form to global standards, but enforcement/implemen­tation remain bane of our policy documents. This can be gleaned from some degree awarding institutions exist­ing for many years without accreditation; or admitting and graduating students in programmes without full ac­creditation. The recent recog­nition granted Plateau State University by the NUC after ten years of existence is a case in point.