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| Varsities Need 32,000 Ph.ds by Rastamann: 7:15pm On Sep 06, 2011 |
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Lecturers: Varsities need 32,000 Ph.Ds - Investigation
Olabisi Deji-Folutile
Available statistics show at least a shortfall of 32,000 Ph.D holders in Nigerian university system, making Ph.D holders to be in high demand in both private and public universities in the country. But vacancies for qualified lecturers may remain for a long time to come due to factors working against training of doctoral candidates, Olabisi Deji-Folutile writes.
For five years, Ugochukwu John has been searching for a university that has space for doctoral students but he has yet to find one. His alma mater, the University of Lagos, cannot accommodate him for now, because the available supervisors in the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Department of Political Science where he hopes to pursue his doctorate are overbooked. Each of the supervisors has not less than five candidates. Though each candidate is expected to graduate in five years, there is always a backlog of candidates, hence new comers have to wait for their turns.
John, now a senior research officer in one of the media organisations in the country says one of the reasons for the problem of overbooking of experienced lecturers, is non-replacement of retired, experienced professors by most universities. While experienced teachers like Profs. Alaba Ogunsanwo and Remi Anifowoshe retired from UNILAG many years ago, others like Dr. Tunde Babawale left the system for politics. Unfortunately, there have been no replacements for these experienced hands. Rather, the university has only succeeded in recruiting low-level lecturers to fill the vacancies in the faculty.
A former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos, Prof. Oye Ibidapo-Obe, confirms that non- replacement of retired professors contributes to the problem of scarcity of experienced hands in the nation's ivory towers. "Experienced teachers are retiring and younger people are not taking up teaching as a profession. The quality of hands available is even more frightening. Most universities find it difficult to get as many hands as they want,'' he said.
http://odili.net/news/source/2011/sep/6/807.html |
