FOLLOWING up on a renewed campaign by education sector agencies to improve the quality of higher degrees awarded by Nigerian universities, the Tertiary Education Trust Fund has again raised concerns over the menace of plagiarism and shoddy scholarship. Ominously, the agency says these are fast killing the quality and credibility of research works being churned out by higher institutions. The move is a step in the right direction.

Recently during a capacity building workshop for librarians, directors of ICT, and desk officers and other relevant staff from the benefiting institutions of its funding, the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Suleiman Bogoro, stressed the need to deploy technology to improve the quality of academic research output and end plagiarism by researchers “across all levels, including professors.”

Bogoro’s threat to sanction erring academics and institutions benefitting from its funding follows a similar strong complaint over poor doctoral degrees earlier made by Abubakar Rasheed, the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission. Rasheed attributed the poor quality of PhD research being churned out by Nigerian universities and huge copyright infringement to some avoidable factors such as incompetent supervisors, interminably long periods of doctoral research and consequent frustration of PhD students. He described as “meddlesome interlopers,” dons assigned to supervise disciplines in which they lack competence, thereby making PhD students “victims of interminable doctoral programmes.” According to him, being a professor does not mean that the person can supervise very well.

Rasheed added, “… at the end, the product or quality of the school is not what it should be. And of course, if you put this against the backdrop of the critical role which doctoral research is expected to play in terms of innovation, creating new relevant knowledge by generating knowledge that is marketable for goods and services converted to goods and services, all of these have an effect in terms of establishing of nexus between doctoral training and national development.”

That is the crux of the matter. A major justification for the provision of tertiary education is that it develops the ability to think abstractly. Studies by Harvard University researchers published by the Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management established that tertiary education and postgraduate degrees play a significant role in promoting economic growth. For developing countries especially, experts said that as the world moves closer to a knowledge-focused economy, higher degrees “can help economies gain ground on more technologically-advanced societies…”

The acquisition of quality postgraduate degrees at home and abroad was a key element in the overall development strategy of Japan, China, and the Asian Tigers – Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. Since introducing new regulations in 1981, the number of graduate students in China has increased 50-fold, and the country had by 2018 overtaken the United States as the world’s largest producer of research publications, according to the US National Science Foundation. Singapore has two types of universities: research-intensive institutions and the applied-degree pathway where hands-on experience and industry exposure is emphasised. Quality is never compromised.

Where, as Bogoro alleged, instead of research useful for public policy or for businesses, plagiarism thrives, the country loses. While the possession of a PhD is not strictly mandated by most universities worldwide, a higher number of academics possess the degree, enhancing their standing and those of their institutions among their peers. Besides, says QS World University Rankings, “completing a PhD is all about creating fresh knowledge,” adding; “one’s discovery/invention may even change society.”

Nigeria should therefore take the issue of quality of higher degrees more seriously. Like all facets of Nigerian society, doctoral studies have also been hit, perhaps worsened by official policy. The NUC may have meant well, when it insisted on PhD as the minimum qualification for lecturing in the universities, saying the system had a shortfall of 20,000 PhD holders. But the ensuing rush by serving and aspiring lecturers to earn the coveted certificate has swamped the system. Many have taken the path of going for doctoral studies at private universities, some of which lack the requisite academic specialists to supervise the rigorous scholarship expected of a PhD thesis.

Solving the problem requires action by the public and private sectors. Funding for doctoral studies should be improved. In the US, funding for many PhD students comes from federal and state governments, charities, non-profits, loans, grants and assistantships and stipends. Considerable funding for research also comes from corporations through foundations and programmes.

Moreover, the quality of teaching and research in many Nigerian universities is outdated. Dons are not upgrading their knowledge, and research is thin on the ground. Many academics are still operating with old methods and knowledge, failing to grasp the new age of technology and digital knowledge across the multidisciplinary academic fields.

In a field like journalism, media, and communication, where researchers around the world are teaching and researching Algorithmic Journalism; Interpretative Journalism; Artificial Intelligence in Media and Communication Studies, Nigerian universities are still teaching old theories.

Frequent closure of the universities occasioned by lecturers’ strikes and students’ unrest does not help either. Libraries are ill-equipped; laboratories are inadequate and lack essential equipment. The classrooms and hostels are overcrowded and living conditions on the campuses are wretched. In this milieu, corruption thrives and there are reports of “professional” thesis writers on the campuses contracted to write and plagiarise theses for students.

Universities and their proprietors must cleanse the system. In line with global best practices, aspiring PhD students can be admitted as research assistants, given fellowships and teaching assistants where they are paid and groomed in research and teaching while studying for their degrees within the university system.

The NUC should review its policy on mandatory PhDs for teaching. Some of the world’s most accomplished scholars in diverse fields lack it. Universities should be allowed to prescribe their own qualifications subject to a universal minimum stipulated by the regulators. They should never compromise on standards. There should be a national policy on higher degrees with a view to harnessing knowledge for development, technology, and the economy. State governments should also have their own policies. Israel, the US, China, and Singapore offer examples of countries that prioritise research, including generously funding the acquisition of post-graduate degrees by their nationals. Nigeria should follow suit and ensure global standards in the quality of its academic certificates.

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