I have no space to publish the deluge of responses my column of last week ignited, but read below a sample which collectively paint a picture of the sordid state of Nigerian postgraduate education.
"You've really hit the nail on the head with this piece! Those reasons you gave were what made me throw in the towel and abandon my Ph.D. program after seven years!
In addition to those, one has to contend with corrupt departmental staff who want you to always be giving them money. They even at a time hid my departmental file and said there was nobody to go and search for it. They advised that I open another one and again pay the departmental charges. And they were openly encouraged by the course co-ordinator who said, to my face, that they shouldn't pity me because my organization had money.
My supervisor made me open a file where I put my proposal because he said he wouldn't accept it by email as it would require him buying fuel to start his generator to download and print it.
Whenever I went to ask whether he had gone through my proposal, he would ask me to go through a stack of files to find mine - sometimes I would find it after so much effort and waste of time. At other times, he would say he might have taken it home - after which he would give me another appointment as he was unable to look at it. And I normally cover about 400 kms to reach the school. The man seldom answered my phone call nor responded to my emails.
There was a day he told another Ph.D student that they made a mistake in giving him admission as his masters was a professional and not an academic one. That they were considering whether he had to take additional courses or start a new masters before continuing with the Ph.D. And no definite time or adequate explanation was given to him on when that would be done! All this happened in my presence.
One of our staff who just completed his masters told me they had to contribute money to pay for accommodation and feeding for the external examiner!"
Ahmed Abdulkadir
For the other responses, open the link below from Prof. Farooq Kperogi 's blog:
"You've really hit the nail on the head with this piece! Those reasons you gave were what made me throw in the towel and abandon my Ph.D. program after seven years!
In addition to those, one has to contend with corrupt departmental staff who want you to always be giving them money. They even at a time hid my departmental file and said there was nobody to go and search for it. They advised that I open another one and again pay the departmental charges. And they were openly encouraged by the course co-ordinator who said, to my face, that they shouldn't pity me because my organization had money.
My supervisor made me open a file where I put my proposal because he said he wouldn't accept it by email as it would require him buying fuel to start his generator to download and print it.
Whenever I went to ask whether he had gone through my proposal, he would ask me to go through a stack of files to find mine - sometimes I would find it after so much effort and waste of time. At other times, he would say he might have taken it home - after which he would give me another appointment as he was unable to look at it. And I normally cover about 400 kms to reach the school. The man seldom answered my phone call nor responded to my emails.
There was a day he told another Ph.D student that they made a mistake in giving him admission as his masters was a professional and not an academic one. That they were considering whether he had to take additional courses or start a new masters before continuing with the Ph.D. And no definite time or adequate explanation was given to him on when that would be done! All this happened in my presence.
One of our staff who just completed his masters told me they had to contribute money to pay for accommodation and feeding for the external examiner!"
Ahmed Abdulkadir
For the other responses, open the link below from Prof. Farooq Kperogi 's blog: