UNIVERSITIES AND RETIRING PROFESSORS
THE president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Professor Ukachukwu Awuzie, recently remarked that a survey conducted by the union showed that universities
lose between 10 and 15 professors monthly to retirement, suggesting that the universities are increasingly becoming depleted of lecturers at the level of professor. He attributed this situation to the failure of the Federal Government (FG) to fulfil its part on the FG- ASUU agreement in 2009 to raise the retirement age of professors from 65 to 70 years. The 2009 pact between ASUU and the FG to increase the retirement age of professors from 65 to 70 years was to ensure that the universities are able to retain quality manpower. The government was expected to enact a law that would make it possible for professors to stay on the job till the age of 70, given that the current law governing the universities put the mandatory retirement age at 65 years.
THE ASUU president further criticised the government for establishing nine additional universities and several other private ones, without marching them with facilities and infrastructure. The National Universities Commission has pegged the minimum qualification for a university lecturer at PhD. The wave of exit of the older professors has added to the limitation that universities face in terms of the availability of human capacity for academic programmes in the universities. There is therefore an urgent need to fill the gap to avoid a total collapse of university education, Awuzie warned.
AWUZIE is of the view that the government is to blame for the dearth of quality manpower in the universities. He believes that government is not serious about ensuring quality manpower in the universities, that is why it has failed to pass the necessary law to implement the 70 years retirement age. The ASUU president further advised the government to consider automatic employment in the universities for students with first class grades, placing them in programmes that would assist them obtain their PhD degrees within or outside the country in order to close the gap created by the retiring professors and take the universities to their desired heights. He further called on the government to rise up to its responsibility of encouraging professors in research by equipping research laboratories and workshops with the latest technology, to enable them to carry out their programmes.
AWUZIE’S position suggests that the government is largely responsible for the sorry state of things in the universities. The government has not only failed to enact the law that will enable professors to stay on till 70 years, it has not provided sufficient fund for research and laboratories. The poor funding has also made it near impossible for the universities to attract international scholars and students into the country. The country has less than a quarter of the human capacity that the nation needs to give sound tertiary education to the Nigerian student. Yet some of the few existing ones go abroad for greener pastures, while some delve into politics and other things, as they no longer find the system conducive and attractive enough. If the conditions of service were put right and the up-and-coming lecturers encouraged through funding and exposure, the university system would improve. He added that research, a major component of activities of universities, must be taken seriously.
THESE pieces of advice by the ASUU president are in order. However, they are one sided. Worse still they squarely placed the problems of the universities in the hands of the government. This is only half the story. The professors themselves are responsible for a sizeable part of the problem of the universities. While the extension of the retirement age appears to answer to the need to keep valuable manpower in the university system, ASUU has failed to address the common feature in the universities where lecturers abandon teaching and academic research once they become professors. Many of the professors use the universities as a mere base to support their consultancy activities to enrich themselves at the expense of the universities. They neither teach nor mentor or engage in significant research activities that can extend the frontiers of knowledge and expose younger academics. Keeping such professors till they are 70 years may not add value to university capacity.
SECONDLY, nothing proves the failure of the professors in mentoring and succession planning as the current gap that the ASUU president is seeking to fill. If these professors were able to reproduce themselves, such a gap will not exist. In fact, their exit will provide opportunity for younger scholars to take on added responsibility and ensure stability of the system. The new private and public universities provide opportunities for such professors who are active and can further extend their contribution to research and university development. These newly established government and private universities need their experience and skills to find their feet.
FURTHERMORE, the universities should take mentoring and succession seriously. When the older universities were established, many of the academic staff were foreigners. If the foreigners were able to transfer the running of the universities to Nigerians, without the universities experiencing collapse or even a fall in standards, then the leadership of the universities must share in the blame for the current state of things. Besides, a programme of ensuring that responsible hands are encouraged to stay on the faculty is not the direct responsibility of government as suggested by Awuzie. Each university must development a mentoring and succession plan to ensure that professors are able to reproduce themselves. While we call on the government to enact the law and play its part in fulfilling the FG-ASUU 2009 agreement, we call on ASUU to sensitise its members to the need to take mentoring and succession seriously and make it an integral part of university life.
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