Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Chief Anyim Pius Anyim, yesterday in Sokoto State, lamented the quality and inadequacy of lecturers in Nigerian universities.
He said 57 per cent of the lecturers had no PhD, adding that inadequate accommodation in the universities, which compels students to stay off campus, makes them vulnerable to cultism and other social vices.
Delivering a paper titled, “University Education in Nigeria: Challenges and Prospects” at a convocation lecture of the Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, the SGF admitted that funding would always be a challenge in the universities because of scarce resources.
While lamenting that there were more non-teaching staff in the Nigerian universities than the academics, Anyim said: “There are 37,507 academic staff in our public universities. Of this number, only 28,128 (75 per cent) are employed on fulltime basis. This means that 9,376 (25per cent) are engaged as visiting, adjunct, sabbatical and contract staff.”
Anyim continued: “23,030 (61.0per cent) are employed in federal universities, while 14,474 (39.0per cent) teach in state universities. In terms of their academic qualifications, the SGF lamented that, “57per cent of the lecturers have no PhDs. These figures clearly illustrate the twin challenges of adequacy and quality of lecturers. The system needs more teachers, while there is the urgent need to upgrade the qualifications of the majority who are under-qualified,” the SGF noted.