By Chidimma C. Okeke, who was in Sudan | Publish Date: Sep 2 2018 2:00AM


Last month, an inspection team from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) embarked on a four-day visit to Nigerian lecturers who are on postgraduate studies in Sudan. Despite few challenges, the scholars are relishing their experiences. Daily Trust on Sunday reports.




Adamu Aliyu Muhammed obtained his first and second degrees from Nigerian universities. Though an academic staff of the Taraba State University, he had never imagined he would someday study abroad due to its cost implication.

However, with the intervention of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, he will soon complete his doctorate degree in Literature from the International University of Africa, Sudan, soon.
“I never thought of an opportunity to even catch a plane, let alone leave this country to study abroad, but thanks to TETFUND; we came out and we studied,” the elated Muhammed said.
He is among 2, 000 scholars from several tertiary institutions in Nigeria, sponsored by TETFUND through its Academic Staff Training and Development Programmes. The scholars are in various countries around the world.
The academic training programme started in 2008 after the National Universities commission (NUC) formulated a policy that PhD would be the minimum teaching requirement in Nigerian universities.


During a monitoring and inspection exercise by the TETFUND officials to Sudan, the Director, Research and Development, Malam Aliyu Na’Iya, said there were less than 15 per cent of PhD holders in all Nigerian universities when the policy was made.
He said TETFUND decided to open up and sponsor scholars to acquire their PhDs and meet the requirements, as part of efforts to ensure that Nigeria’s tertiary institutions compete favourably with other world class institutions.
He said 95 scholars secured TETFUND scholarship to study in Sudan, while 63 have completed their programmes, 31 are still undergoing their studies, but one person died among them.

Addressing the scholars studying at the International University of Africa, Sudan, Na’Iya said the annual exercise would ensure that the scholars are in tune with what the fund is doing and ensure that they are actually studying. He said TETFUND was reforming the programme due to the failure of some benefiting institutions to comply with laid down rules. He added that the fund would no longer allow scholars benefitting under its scholarship programme to attend any lowly ranked university in the world.

“Only universities that meet the World University Ranking of the Times Higher Education and are top on the league table of universities in a particular country would be approved for the purpose of TETFUND scholarship,” he said. This, he added, would ensure that TETFUND scholars are trained in the best universities in the world.
He explained that the University of Ibadan was the only highly ranked Nigerian university in 2017 by Times Higher Education, so academicians may wish to go there instead of going to institutions that are not ranked or those ranked below standard.
Another scholar, Tijani Usman, commended the move by the agency to reform the scholarship programme.

“We are strongly impressed with the efforts of TETFUND in supplementing the efforts in our institutions. I appreciate the issue of ranking. To be sincere, most universities here are not even better than the Nigerian universities, so it is a commendable effort,” said the PhD student from the Taraba State College of Education.
However, the scholars said their choice of Sudan was informed by the treatment of doctorate students in Nigeria.
Speaking on what informed his choice of Sudan, Muhammed further said: “I was motivated to come outside by the bad experience I had when I was doing my master’s degree. A Nigerian professor is like a demigod; he wants to be worshipped literally and I promised myself never to study in Nigeria again.

“I don’t know whether our professors are really teaching or they want to show us their level of divinity when it comes to relationship with people.”
He said that when he got the opportunity, he took it because of the simplicity and friendliness and hospitality of the people, and luckily, TETFUND approved and paid.

Usman, however, admitted that most schools in the country are not better than Nigerian universities and blamed the system for frustrating postgraduate students in Nigeria.
“We were forced to come out because of frustrations in Nigeria. Something has to be done to our system, particularly the PhD and master’s. In fact, there is a need for complete paradigm shift from the way they operate,” he said.
Usman said that in universities outside Nigeria, the moment you come in, you know when to graduate.


“This is the most important thing, but in Nigeria it is not applicable. Most Nigerian universities spend longer years for master’s and PhD, which is terrible,” he said.
The scholars, however, agreed that they were part of the problem since most of them are lecturers in Nigerian tertiary institutions.
“The problem of the Nigerian university system is us, the academics. We are the problem. There is the need for us to change. The problem is excessive quest for personal aggrandizement,” Mohammed said.


He said there was the need to be very rigid in implementing laws, saying that until the Ministry of Education, the National Universities Commission (NUC), in collaboration with TETFUND, make it a policy and stand by it, nothing would change.
Another scholar from the Federal College of Education, Gombe, Abdulganiyu Jimoh, acknowledged the fact that the Sudanese are hospitable, saying it is a very important virtue.
“Professors who are your supervisors look for you; they visit you. It happens only in Sudan, not Nigeria,” he said.


Jimoh said: “When you look at the student-to-teacher ratio, there are many professors. Also, when you are qualified, you get admission; it’s not like ours where, out of 100, only 10 would get admission. We have the potentials in Nigeria, only that we are not using them.”
Mohammed said he left Sudan, not only with his certificates, but also with a renewed mind on how best to relate with his students and ensure maximum productivity.

“Immediately I went back, I was supervising my students the way my professor treated me. I invited them to my house and served them drinks. They were very surprised, wondering what was happening. I said that’s the advantage of studying abroad,” he said.
He said his relationship with students was very cordial, adding that in Sudan, there was no gap at all as students could speak to their professors anytime, even at the market.

“The moment you come to his office he gives you a cup of tea and you relax. That relationship is lacking in Nigeria,” said Mohammed.
“If we can borrow from what they are doing here, I am suggesting if TETFUND can give incentives to every professor in Nigeria, if they are able to graduate a particular number of students, it may encourage them to fasten their belts,” Usman said.

However, there are pockets of hurdles faced by the scholars in Sudan.
For Mohammed, it is more about exchange rate, accommodation, food, transportation and expensive lifestyle. He said exchange was challenging because he could not use his ATM card to transact business, as such, he had to change from local currency to dollars.

According to him, life is very expensive in Sudan because the country is in economic recession.
Another scholar, Fatima Muhammed Shehu, from the Nigeria Defence Academy (NDA), Kaduna, studying Arabic Language in Al-Jazeera University, Sudan, said it was hectic because she got admission in 2015 but wasn’t released from her place of work until September 2016.

“When I applied for visa, I was told that admission letter had expired and I had to renew the admission. In that process, I faced different problems, which desperately made me change university because I couldn’t renew my admission,” she said.
She, however, said she didn’t have any problem with acquiring the fund. “I was told it was N9 million, which was what I was given.”

https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/our-experiences-as-scholars-in-sudan-nigerian-lecturers-268612.html

Lalasticlala codetemplar

No problem really, as long as those lecturers being sponsored by Tetfund are studying Literature or Arabic etc. It would be saddening if any lecturer is sent to study STEM courses in Sudan.

Then secondly my question to baffa goes thus, you are the one who criticized private universities here in Nigeria for not being cheap, yet you release 9 million naira to folks to go study arabic/literature in sudan. What is the use of ABU, Bayero, Unimaid and Al-Qalam university?

Tetfund policy explicitly states that Nigerian lecturers can only be sponsored in top 1000 universities in the world(Times Ranking) but here you are sponsoring lecturers in sudan which has no university in top 1000 by Times standard and top 2000 by webometrics standard. The best university in Sudan - Uni Of Khartoum can only rank 5th in Nigeria, so why are we setting up kangaroo policies and enrishing sudan unnecessarily...

I'm not surprised...

HigherEd:
No problem really, as long as those lecturers being sponsored by Tetfund are studying Literature or Arabic etc. It would be saddening if any lecturer is sent to study STEM courses in Sudan.

Then secondly my question to baffa goes thus, you are the one who criticized private universities here in Nigeria for not being cheap, yet you release 9 million naira to folks to go study arabic/literature in sudan. What is the use of ABU, Bayero, Unimaid and Al-Qalam university?

Tetfund policy explicitly states that Nigerian lecturers can only be sponsored in top 1000 universities in the world(Times Ranking) but here you are sponsoring lecturers in sudan which has no university in top 1000 by Times standard and top 2000 by webometrics standard. The best university in Sudan - Uni Of Khartoum can only rank 5th in Nigeria, so why are we setting up kangaroo policies and enrishing sudan unnecessarily...

Nice observation

HigherEd:
No problem really, as long as those lecturers being sponsored by Tetfund are studying Literature or Arabic etc. It would be saddening if any lecturer is sent to study STEM courses in Sudan.

Then secondly my question to baffa goes thus, you are the one who criticized private universities here in Nigeria for not being cheap, yet you release 9 million naira to folks to go study arabic/literature in sudan. What is the use of ABU, Bayero, Unimaid and Al-Qalam university?

Tetfund policy explicitly states that Nigerian lecturers can only be sponsored in top 1000 universities in the world(Times Ranking) but here you are sponsoring lecturers in sudan which has no university in top 1000 by Times standard and top 2000 by webometrics standard. The best university in Sudan - Uni Of Khartoum can only rank 5th in Nigeria, so why are we setting up kangaroo policies and enrishing sudan unnecessarily...

When I speak at times it may look like I have some form of hatred for northern folks. Any agency or body with impressive representation of northerner is always having these kinds of challenges.
I once asked about what foreign nationals who are studying in Nigeria pay as fee in public universities because of things like these.

What TETFund is doing is like NNPC sending staff member to Angola or Niger or even Ghana to learn about crude oil related management when those nations should be the ones consulting big brother NNPC/Nigeria. If we can use public funds to buy Ramadan rams then nothing surprises me about Nigeria.

HigherEd:
No problem really, as long as those lecturers being sponsored by Tetfund are studying Literature or Arabic etc. It would be saddening if any lecturer is sent to study STEM courses in Sudan.

Then secondly my question to baffa goes thus, you are the one who criticized private universities here in Nigeria for not being cheap, yet you release 9 million naira to folks to go study arabic/literature in sudan. What is the use of ABU, Bayero, Unimaid and Al-Qalam university?

Tetfund policy explicitly states that Nigerian lecturers can only be sponsored in top 1000 universities in the world(Times Ranking) but here you are sponsoring lecturers in sudan which has no university in top 1000 by Times standard and top 2000 by webometrics standard. The best university in Sudan - Uni Of Khartoum can only rank 5th in Nigeria, so why are we setting up kangaroo policies and enrishing sudan unnecessarily...

I think TETFUND only sponsors only top 100 in the world. That top 1000 is just a scam, when your school is not between 1-100 forget it, disapproved.

The North is the problem of this hell hole



Fear North