Scholars seek urgent reform of Nigeria’s PhD system By Jide Olusola Scholars have called for urgent reforms in Nigeria’s doctoral education system, citing low PhD output, prolonged completion periods and weak links between university research and national development. They spoke on Tuesday in Abuja at the Nigeria In-Country Inception and Design Workshop on Transforming Doctoral Education in Nigerian Universities, organised by the Partnership for African Social and Governance Research (PASGR) and the Carnegie Corporation. The workshop brought together officials of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) and university leaders to examine PhD supervision, funding, research quality and policy frameworks. Speaking at the event, the Project Principal Investigator of the PhD Models in Africa study, Prof. Ayo Ojebode, said Africa had only about 0.3 per cent of its population holding PhDs, creating a significant manpower gap. “What this project is trying to respond to is not an academic or research gap. It is actually largely a manpower gap,” Ojebode said. He said the study, being conducted in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Senegal, Ethiopia and South Africa, would examine supervision, completion periods, students’ experiences and successful doctoral models that could be replicated. “It is also about the quality of the PhD, as well as the quality or the humanity of the journey that they went through before they got the PhD,” he said. The Nigeria Country Principal Investigator, Prof. Fatai Aremu, said doctoral research must be redirected towards solving societal problems rather than producing theses that end up unused on university shelves. “The disconnect between the PhD thesis and the likelihood of uptake and utilisation is very wide, and there are so many reasons for that,” Aremu said. He urged universities to shift from focusing on research topics to identifying problems that doctoral studies should address. “To frame interesting topics is not difficult, but to articulate a problem on which PhD research will be conducted is more difficult,” he said. Aremu also called for continuous training of supervisors and improved research infrastructure, saying candidates should not spend 10 or 15 years pursuing doctoral degrees. “We want a situation where, when somebody is enrolling on the PhD programme, they finish within the stipulated term,” he said. Also speaking, PASGR’s Head of Finance and Administration, Constance Furaha Mohunga, said the study was aimed at identifying a doctoral model that could improve access, funding, completion and research impact across Africa. “We realised that even the graduation rates, it’s high in South Africa, followed by Nigeria, and probably we are trailing behind in Kenya,” she said. She said the ultimate goal was to produce researchers whose work would influence policy and development across the continent.
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