Imported User:
President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday made a startling revelation: about 60 percent of academic staff in Nigerian universities are yet to earn their doctorate (PhD) degree.
The president who said he received the very embarrassing report, noted that the situation does not augur well for the nation’s academic sector.
According to him: This is not good enough in a country where something needed to be done to expand the economy beyond over dependence on oil because the expectation, the world over, on Nigeria is very high as the leading country in Africa.
Jonathan who made this position while inaugurating a 10-man Presidential Committee on the Award of Post Graduate Scholarship to First Class Graduates tagged as best brains at the Presidential villa, Abuja noted that it was based on this global perception about the country that his government felt committed to changing the educational system from primary school up to the tertiary level.
He said, “The information I got from the executive secretary of the National Universities Commission is that about 60 percent of our academic staff in Nigerian universities don’t have PhD. That is quite embarrassing; that is not good enough. I will set up an inter-ministerial department to work with some of you in the academics to come up with policies for robust training of young men and women who are interested in academics to go anywhere in the world.
“We must reduce that, there is no way that we have up to 60 per cent academic staff without PhD. It should not be more than 10 percent for those who are starting before they go for their Masters and PhD,” the president declared.
