It
has been argued before, not singly, that our universities have long absconded
one of their fundamental duties: being centres of research.
Competition
to build spectacularly stomach-churning structures - libraries and
administration blocks - on campus, fighting to admit the highest number of
students and producing the most graduates - never mind the quality, relevance
of the courses - is what these once venerated institutions have resorted to
doing in what is clearly a desperate attempt to remain relevant.
Factor
in boardroom wars in top leadership succession, reeking graft and the ethnic -
and sometimes violent - dimensions that students’ elections take nowadays, and
what is left is a detestable husk of the noble academic centres of old.
I
have a particular, and a more personal bone to pick with university lecturers,
doctors and professors.
Only
recently, I had a research project in linguistics. The nature of my study, as will
usually entail, involved intense scouring of books, journals, and, thanks to
technology, the web.
A glaring deficiency that I encountered is that there is nearly
nothing that local scholars have contributed in an effort to create new
linguistic knowledge. The little there is, most sadly, is nothing to write home
about.
I have always regarded lecturers in my department with great awe,
but on this, they have unpardonably let us down.
Much of the academic content online is by foreign authors. Would
it not feel more elating, and indeed patriotic, to cite locally? How it
demotivates to have an entire bibliography dominated by western and European
writers!
Where have our professors gone to? What are our doctors doing? Are
theirs titles only for show-off with nothing really meaningful to show of them?
Or are they content with the already existing knowledge?
Notably, lecturers are today engrossed in the crazy pursuit of
more lucrative contracts in as many universities as is logically sane, in what
can only be described as an intriguing turn in this concept of
commercialisation of education of our modern times.
Thus, students are left under the custodianship of junior
lecturers, most of who are Masters students, and some who do not make the cut
to lecture. What happens when one cannot objectively, let alone adequately,
respond to questions to sate the curiosity of students on a concept taught in
class?
It would be justifiable, somewhat, if this were happening while
senior lecturers were diligently buried in research endeavours.
Plagiarism, that is, use of academic or creative work of another
writer's or artist's without due attribution, is one of the most grievous
academic offenses. Unfortunately though, what our universities are doing is
brood a generation of 'academic thieves'. This is as a result of a lack of
proper and sufficient guidance to students.
In fact it is no longer noteworthy to have a student who has
stolen work online perform better than a fellow who has genuinely undertaken
their own research in a term paper.
Fairness and meritocracy were the first victims to be cast out
through the window. Or this, probably, justifies the worrying notion that exams
in the universities are sometimes never marked at all. A story for another day.
Is it rational to apprehend a student who irregularly uses a
scholar's piece without the necessary acknowledgement when the course
instructor himself does not in the least do the same? Some lecturers are so
lazy that they dictate to their students notes derived from the Internet.
Students on the other hand copy almost everything from the web and present, in
an unaltered fashion, for marking!
Can anyone point a finger? Can anyone, when there is so much
common a denominator?
Some of the popular criteria used to rank academic institutions of
higher learning is by evaluating how much research is conducted within the
various universities, and also the volume of citations to works authored by
scholars affiliated to these institutions.
As such, the low ranking of our universities is a clear indication
of the few research projects initiated, and even fewer citations done. That is
against the backdrop of the billions of taxpayers' money set aside and churned
by the Treasury to these public universities every financial year to facilitate
research projects.
Not long ago, I caused quite a stir among my cronies on Facebook,
when on a post I said: We entered the university through the gate of bloated
optimism; here we are exiting through the (back) door of modesty, silently.
It touches to see how the standards of quality have tumbled
headfirst, and how fast the little good that remains of universities is on such
demoralising down a trajectory.
If our universities must remain relevant, then a complete overhaul
of structures, culture and attitude are non-negotiable. Doctors and professors
must return to laboratories and research tables. Lecturers must lecture.
Until then, our universities will remain the laughing stock of
other overseas colleges, and continue to wallow in their self-synthesised
miseries.
I dare anyone to throw down the gauntlet on me regarding this
matter.
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