The Nigerian higher education mess in one photo

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

When we're serious about higher education, we'll all know. For now, this is the joke we are perpetrating in the name of scholarship in Nigerian universities, especially in the humanities and social sciences. At the annual U of Texas Conference, I once listened to a speaker from UMYU, Sokoto, and I couldn't tell if he was presenting an academic paper or proselytizing. And no, he was not even a scholar of religion. He was a political scientist if my recollection is correct. Apparently, no one had told him--just as no one has told the undergraduate author of this thesis--that espousing your religious beliefs or uncritically propagating the claims or tenets of your faith is a no-no in the academy.

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

I meant to write UDUS, Sokoto, not UMYU, which is in Katsina.

On Tue, Jan 14, 2020 at 3:53 PM Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com> wrote:

When we're serious about higher education, we'll all know. For now, this is the joke we are perpetrating in the name of scholarship in Nigerian universities, especially in the humanities and social sciences. At the annual U of Texas Conference, I once listened to a speaker from UMYU, Sokoto, and I couldn't tell if he was presenting an academic paper or proselytizing. And no, he was not even a scholar of religion. He was a political scientist if my recollection is correct. Apparently, no one had told him--just as no one has told the undergraduate author of this thesis--that espousing your religious beliefs or uncritically propagating the claims or tenets of your faith is a no-no in the academy.

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[Toyin Falola]

Moses:

Farooq sent this to me on WhatsApp.  I read it as a science degree, and the student will start with a lab walk, collecting the blood of Jesus. Test results will now be correlated to seen forces—passing a grade—and unseen forces—escaping the thrashing by Gentiles.

Nomination for Nobel follows.

Permanently jealous professors will grumble.

TF

 

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220, USA

http://toyinfalolanetwork.org/

 

[Michael Afolayan]

Hmm, Moses, I probably would not show the name of this young fellow, if only to relief him of future embarrassment. I also have a hunch that this might be some of those mushroom institutions affiliated with Olabisi Onabanjo University. Believe me, there are many "centers", "institutes" and "institutions" that purchase affiliations with established universities in Nigeria, and you could find them anywhere and everywhere. Not that I know that much about Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye, other than having been a casual visitor to the campus a few times, but it would be tantamount to malpractice if indeed this was a topic that an instructor or a committee approved for an undergraduate student to write his or her thesis on in partial fulfillment of a degree - any degree! 

No doubt, our higher education culture needs some serious standardization and the thirst for certificates must be quenched with better moderation!

Michael

On Tuesday, January 14, 2020, 10:53:37 PM GMT+1, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com> wrote:

When we're serious about higher education, we'll all know. For now, this is the joke we are perpetrating in the name of scholarship in Nigerian universities, especially in the humanities and social sciences. At the annual U of Texas Conference, I once listened to a speaker from UMYU, Sokoto, and I couldn't tell if he was presenting an academic paper or proselytizing. And no, he was not even a scholar of religion. He was a political scientist if my recollection is correct. Apparently, no one had told him--just as no one has told the undergraduate author of this thesis--that espousing your religious beliefs or uncritically propagating the claims or tenets of your faith is a no-no in the academy.