I learnt the nation needs 30,000 academics, we would like to know the actual figure of shortfall of lecturers in the nation’s universities?
The most-recent statistics from the 2007-2008 National Universities Commission staff audit shows that there are about 30,000 academic staff in the Nigerian university system allowing for two per cent increase over the last two years. We have less than 31,000 persons offering service as teachers in the Nigerian university system in 2010. Using the NUC minimum standards as basis for estimation, we should have about 60,000 for the 104 universities enrolling about one million students. The shortfall is therefore in the neighbourhood of 29,000.
While quantity should be of concern, quality of staff should be of greater concern. The rapid expansion of the system especially with state and private universities is accountable for the observed lowering in the quality of staff. Field observations confirm that new universities depressed their appointment and promotion conditions to be able to meet NUC-prescribed minimum standards for staff mix. More worrisome is the appointment into professorial positions of persons with academic credentials much lower than what obtained ‘in the good old days.’ A crop of professors had started to emerge within the last 10 years that would hardly merit a lecturer grade 1 position in any of the first generation universities in the 1960s and 1970s. The claim to research and publications by these charlatan “professors” is found in “roadside” journals and self-published, poorly-edited, largely-plagiarised books.
Clannishness and parochialism have also added dead weights to lowering the quality of process of appointment and promotion. In some universities including federal-owned institutions, being a “son of the soil” ranks higher than merit in appointment to management and academic leadership positions such as vice-chancellor, registrar, dean of faculty or head of department. State universities are most guilty on this score. Non-indigeneship of a state is inhibitory to appointment into the university, more so into academic leadership positions. A few universities such as Osun State University, Osogbo and University of Science and Technology, Ifaki-Ekiti, Ekiti State provide examples of cosmopolitan and merit-driven climate for appointment and promotion. These examples are worthy of emulation.
Why are lecturers leaving Nigeria?
There are pull and push factors accounting for mobility of lecturers. The pull factor is mainly economic with lecturers moving to an employment within or outside Nigeria that will earn them more money and improve their quality of life. Such movement is typically to the private sector in Nigeria or to a university outside Nigeria that offers better salaries.
The push factor is the conduciveness of the university environment for professional development. Lecturers will be pushed out of a university where job satisfaction for teaching and research is low, to a setting where they will feel fulfilled in their teaching and research duties. The assistant lecturer would want to be a professor someday, a rise that will be met mainly through research and publication. If a university presents an environment that will comprise quality research and overload staff with teaching duties, the assistant lecturer will, without hesitation, take up appointment with a university with rich research infrastructure and ample time for the conduct of research.
Staff mobility resulting in brain drain outside the university system is an international phenomenon that many African countries, including Nigeria, suffered from especially between 1980 and 2000. On a happy note, since 2003 when conditions of service and work environment in the Nigerian university started observing steady improvement, the rate of drain has significantly reduced. With salaries of Nigerian university teachers rising to surpass the African average, a reversal in brain drain has started to be noticed.
What are the programmes suffering as a result of this?
All programmes are affected by staff mobility outside the university system. Worse hit however are Economics, Business Administration, Information Communication Technology, Engineering and Medicine.
Why is the nation not producing enough Ph.D holders?
The rate of production of Ph.Ds from the Nigerian university system put at about 1,000 per year is respectable and about the highest in Africa. The required number of Ph.Ds cannot be produced overnight. The strategic plan that has been put in place by the NUC is to resource and encourage the first generation universities to slant admission in favour of postgraduate education. University of Ibadan is well on course with the plan by working towards a 60:40 enrolment ratio in favour of postgraduate studies.
The rate of production of Ph.Ds can be bolstered if three factors are considered. First is improvement in the facilities for research such as laboratories. Many Nigerian universities suffer inadequacies of such facilities although some silver lining by way of government grants to support research endeavours through the Education Trust Fund has started to appear on the horizon. Second is the number of supervisors, especially professors, available to guide students through the Ph.D candidacy. Many professors are encumbered with administrative assignments and external consultancies and are unable to apportion sufficient time for postgraduate supervision. Third is the efficiency of the postgraduate school. Many postgraduate schools have low level of efficiency as measured by the number of admitted candidates for a cohort relative to the number that graduates. In some universities, doctoral programmes that should last about three years after the Master’s degree end up with mean time-on-course of about six years.
While the number of Ph.Ds is worthy of attention, the quality of the Ph.D degrees merit equal attention. The combination of poor research, infrastructure, inadequacies in number of professors and quality of supervision and capacity deficit of postgraduate students accounts for the depressed quality of Ph.Ds observed over the last 10 years. Within this generally gloomy picture, are sparkles of brilliant efforts resulting in excellent, award-winning Ph.Ds.
How much does a lecturer earn including the professor?
An assistant lecturer earned N58,000 per month before the 2009 agreement, but now the monthly salary is N180,000, senior lecturer, N440,000 and a professor earns N520,000 per month respectively.
What is your take on the jumbo pay for lawmakers?
I do not have the details of the supposedly “jumbo” pay of lawmakers. A lot of speculations are in the air ranging from N15m to N45m a month. There is a growing consensus among the citizenry that the pay, wherever it is pitched within that range, mismatches the general pay in the public service in Nigeria.
What is my take? The job description of the academic is different from that of the lawmaker. Every worker is entitled to a salary which has been successfully negotiated with his or her employer. If the lawmakers have successfully negotiated their pay with the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission and the executive arm of government, so let it be. It is however incongruous to pitch such salaries so high as to be acutely disproportional to the general salary scheme in the land. I earn a mere N293,000 a month (including all allowances) as a professor of about 20 years standing in Lagos State University. I do not grudge the lawmaker who earns N15m a month. After all, my reward is in heaven! That said, we need to rethink salaries which are out of tune with the reality of the Nigerian economy and the poverty that pervades the land.
What is the implication of this jumbo pay on the psyche of academics who study hard?
It is demoralising for academics that went through years of toil and sweat to earn the Ph.D and stress to train quality human resources for the nation to be rewarded so pitifully low, relative to what lawmakers earn. In an equitable society, this will not happen. Staff unions in universities should not be blamed in the coming months and years for clamouring for triple what is currently earned in the spirit of equity with such huge earnings by lawmakers.
How has this lopsidedness impacted on the quality of graduates being produced in Nigerian universities?
The effect is indirect. Poorly remunerated university staff in the face of huge earnings by lawmakers will be poorly motivated to deliver quality education leading to the production of poor quality graduates. Another link is the lowering of the total volume of funds that would otherwise have gone into improving university facilities now shunted to bloat salaries of lawmakers. Reduced funding and poor quality facilities translate into poor curriculum delivery. Poor quality graduates emerge as products.
How much does Nigeria need to spend on each undergraduate- average depending on the course of study?
Unit cost of training a student in a Nigerian university per year according to an estimate for 2010 from a 2010 study on the basis of discipline is as follows. Administration- N340,000, Arts- N352,000, Agriculture-N305,000, Education-N350,000, Engineering-N485,000. Others are Environmental Sciences, N340,000, Law- N370,000, Social Sciences- N348,000, Science- N375,000, Medicine- N525,000, Pharmacy-N530,000, Veterinary Medicine- N430,000 and Management Technology-N330,000.
Source:http://www.punchng.com
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