I have seen first class students who couldn’t write a project – Baba

The first class degree is becoming like the honourary doctorate which anybody can just get if he has the right connections. I have seen a lot of first class students who  couldn’t write a project. That student couldn’t formulate a research question. It turned out that this  student is only good at cramming and reproducing, […]

The first class degree is becoming like the honourary doctorate which anybody can just get if he has the right connections. I have seen a lot of first class students who  couldn’t write a project. That student couldn’t formulate a research question. It turned out that this  student is only good at cramming and reproducing, and could not function outside of that context. I was highly disappointed. The sheer number of students we have, against a backdrop of  inadequate teaching staff, our attitude as a  country to staff training and development,  all these allow all kinds of characters come into the system. Nowadays, the products of this same system are going back to the system. So, we recycle the problem, and of course, parents and guardians and other stakeholders, expect a high performance, and so I suspect there is a lot of corruption with students buying grades. It’s one of those tactics where you don’t have evidence to stand in a court of law. You know it happened, but you can’t prove it. For instance, some lecturers do bloc marking and you find people slipping through the system.

 Some of them are glorified secondary schools, and my estimation is that close to 60% of the state universities would have collapsed totally if not because of the TeTfund intervention. The state governments set up these universities and they cannot sustain them. Go round the state universities,you will see  more TeTfund projects, than you would see projects done by the state  government, because the funds are not there. But they are producing first class using part time lecturers. I think the NUC figures that less than 60%  of lecturers in Nigeria’s universities  have PhDs, which is not good enough. This means the universities are using people who are not qualified. In some state universities,you find people with masters heading departments. It is an administrative function,but a head of department also provides academic leadership, quality control etc. Some will go and do coursework, and return and be teaching and writing thesis at the same time, doing administrative jobs and serving on committees. So, you cannot give full attention. In some universities, appointments have become a political matter. You see people with second class lower are getting employment as lecturers because of political interference, notes from senators, traditional rulers, or chairmen of committees.