They are minerals of such values that in the past, and even up to the present, they were reasons for war among communities and nations. And so, if ivories must be found in real quantity and quality, those animals who produced them must be available in the same manners. Ivories in ivory towers stand for the purveyors of knowledge in the University system.
They stand for the eggheads who are involved in the business of actively generating knowledge for the well being of the general public and generations yet unborn through research, teaching and community services.
For quite a long time but much more in the recent time, the kind of things that has been happening in the ivory towers in Nigeria is something that I am still finding difficult to believe can happen in the present time. It’s like gradually the elephants are becoming more and more endangered to such an extent that the ivory towers would soon have no more ivories to her name.
In my personal observations, the reasons why I am beginning to come to that conclusion are many and I am going to restrict myself to some of those reasons for the purpose of the present discourse.
The last major recruitment for academics in the Nigerian Federal University system, which has the largest proportion of the students in the country, was done before the turn of the present decade. By estimations, the percentage of the future leaders of this country in those institutions is well over four score in comparison with other categories of Universities in the country. The potential implications of this on the country should be clear to everyone. Equally, the reasons why the demographies are like that should not be far-fetched.
Normally, recruitments and appointments were supposed to be done so much regularly in order to retain the best of the brains among the graduates to raise the next generations of quality leaders to train the future nation. This is not to say that there have not been appointments in some institutions as we all know, but many of those appointments have been done by all kinds of waivers and secrecy that, in many cases, they not only flout every rules of equity, justice and merit which a system like our own need to have credibility and desired quality, they also can not in any way address the humongous crises of shortages of able hands in our Universities.
As a matter arising from what I just stated above, the issue of shortages of manpower has now become total embarrassments in many sections of our universities. As I write, there are many departments in which there are only three or four academic staff instead of about twelve or more clearly indicated in their official establishments.
This picture reflects in other categories of staff too in many departments. Indeed, in one major department of a professional discipline that I know, there is presently no academic staff in that department if you minus those staff who are holding administrative positions as Dean, Head of Department or Directors. So, a single lecturer will be doing the work of three or more lecturers. Yet, work has to go on even if that single lecturer would work with his or her last breath. And yet also you would expect such a department to produce competitive advantages in the ranking systems.
As it is presently, those that were due for retirements since the so-called embargo on recruitments have been retiring. In the past five years, about seven Professors have retired in a certain Faculty that I know, yet there is no replacement in the number of staff. So, the university system is effectively being eroded of effective academic leadership. The real tragedy of the situation will become more apparent when you know the calibre of those retired and retiring Professors.
Most of them are in the category of those trained abroad many years ago with the aim of developing the system. Now, they are leaving without replacements. We are gradually now coming back to the era of unimaginable ignorance of how things should run. We are probably coming to the era which was described in the holy book as an era in which everyone does what is good in their own eyes, because they were devoid of necessary leadership and tutelage while growing in the system.
Yet, the few younger lecturers on ground who by the times of those retirements already have their hands full of responsibilities would have to add those responsibilities the retired professors are leaving to their own so that the system do not collapse. I don’t know how those retired academics feel when right in front of them the system in which they have committed their youthful days have become worse when they were leaving the stage. As it is now, I think it is safe for me to leave the sense of their feelings to individuals of them.
To make the matters worse, most of those who were sent abroad for further trainings in the past few years have just summarily disappeared. I know one department in which three of the four persons who went on study leave with pay to get their PhD in the different areas of need in the department withdrew their appointment once they finished their programme of three years and more. You can imagine the number of meetings and man-hours committed to approving the sustenance of those people by those academic staff on ground, whose only sin is that they stayed back to help build the system.
In another department, all those who were sponsored never returned back. They all hid under various flimsy excuses which they bragged on as if they were speaking to kids. The inevitable results are that the system is denied of benefits of the investments in their trainings which boils down to the fact that the students that were supposed to benefits are also permanently denied.
Unfortunately, none of those who are culprits in these crimes have been held responsible. And there is no indication that they would be. This has served as impetus for the increase in the number of the cases to the extent that now, if anyone is sent for further studies, you can be very sure that such a person will not come back. And nothing will still happen. Those who will cover up them and their messes are well situated in the same systems, both within and without, both up-there and down-here.
The worse part of the scenarios I was trying to describe above are the ripple effects on those staff that are on ground when those who decided to japa went for what they called further trainings, but which down in their individual hearts they know are something else. Those ones on ground will take up all the academic and administrative responsibilities of the ones who went for ‘training’ because normally that’s what they were supposed to do for the time being until those who went for ‘training’ returns. On failure to come back, what was supposed to be a temporary feature would now become a permanent dressing. You can only imagine what is happening in many universities now! In today’s Federal Universities, Professors are conducting level one laboratories and grading practical notes of preliminary students. We have reached an age in which Senior Lecturers no more have Juniors and best graduating students do not want a job in the system that produced them. They can’t even get if they want!
Unfortunately, once the system is ‘running well’, no one cares except the ones who bears the brute of the force and his or her family who have to manage several ailments of their breadwinner, or even suffer their loss.
Indeed, the burden to do this write up came when I had to put a call to some lecturers in my discipline for some assignments and lo and behold, some of those I called were either in the hospital, just coming from the hospital, recuperating at home or just being admitted in a clinic.
In many cases, I had to change the subject of my calling to asking for welfare, in order not to cause some kinds of catastrophe or add to the frustrations that are more than evident in the voice of the persons that were on the other end of the phone. To say the least, the scenarios were, more often than not, frightening. And the question that does come tumbling in my brain is, for how long are we going to continue like this? In the presence of all these scenarios of burden, the numbers of students in the university rolls keep increasing.
They are actually supposed to be, but for the situation in which we find ourselves. You only need to have a picture of lecturer-to-student ratio in many of our faculties to see that, as at present, we are in a really precarious situation. In the minimum standard approved by the regulatory council of my own discipline the ratio is one to six which is in alignment with the ratio approved by the NUC.
Presently, I know a Faculty that is battling with the lecturer-student ratio of one to 17. Some are battling with ratios of one:20, one:50, one:100 and more. The calculations and determinations of effectiveness and productiveness in these scenarios, which are typical of most of our Departments, Faculties and Universities are left for those who are better qualified to handle. To summarise, the figures obtained in most Universities presently fails the limits set by the NUC which the NUC herself knows very well.
To be continued tomorrow.
Akinkunmi is a Professor of pharmaceutical microbiology and biotechnology at Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife. He can be reached Via: [email protected]
