STAFF DEVELOPMENT: THE CHALLENGE OF NEW GENERATION OF AFRICAN SCHOLARS – NIGERIA’S EFFORT

1. STAFF DEVELOPMENT: THE CHALLENGE OF NEW GENERATION OF AFRICAN SCHOLARS – NIGERIA’S EFFORT By Sam. Piwuna, Tertiary Education Trust Fund

2. Introduction There is today an emerging new generation of African Scholars in the Higher Education Sector following the gradual decline noticeable from the mid 1980s. Before then African Higher Education was flourishing with the presence of creative and highly productive scholars. However with passing years coupled with the challenges of development, Higher Education began to experience the huge flight of its first generation Scholars to developed countires. This was worsened by anaging crop of Scholars and inadequate capacity to renew the human capital requirements for the ever expanding sector. There is today the need for an aggressive strategy to fill the gap and develop a cohort of young and well trained faculty members with large capacity to restore and establish a strong Higher Education Sector.

3. TERTIARY EDUCATION TRUST FUND MANDATE The Law establishing the Fund defines the areas of its mandate which include the following:- • Essential physical infrastructure for teaching and learning • Instructional Material and equipment • Research and publication • Academic Staff training and development; and • Any other need which in the opinion of the Board is critical and essential for improvement of quality etc.

4. CAPACITY BUILDING EFFORTS The Nigerian Government has embarked on very aggressive Capacity building efforts for the Higher Education sector through the activities of several government agencies including the Tertiary Education Trust Fund. Since 2008 the Fund embarked on the following innovative Capacity building programmes for higher education in the country.

5. Academic Staff Training and Development Available records at the National Universities Commission (NUC) indicate that the carrying capacity for teachers in Nigerian Universities for the past 3-Years is as follows:

6. The majority of lecturers teaching in our tertiary Institutions, especially Universities are lecturers 1 and below with majority of them yet to acquire a Ph.D degree. Statistics also indicate that only a number of those who have enrolled as postgraduate Students Study in the same Universities where they graduated from and where they teach.

7. In order to break the unhealthy cycle of in-breeding of lecturers by exposing lecturers to other intellectual traditions within and outside Nigeria, an Academic Staff Training and Development (AST&D) programme was introduced in 2008. So far, TETFund has sponsored over 4,574 Lecturers from Federal and State Tertiary Institutions for Post graduate Studies out of which 1,009 are currently studying overseas. This has been acknowledged as the most aggressive training programme for lecturers in the history of Higher Education in Nigeria. Before now, the Federal Government allocated N1.75million to each University as post-graduate training fund.

8. To further push this new programme the Fund has commenced discussions with the Britsih Council for collaboration in seeking placements for Nigerian Scholars in the best Universities (Russel group) in the United Kingdom, being the major destination of Nigerian postgraduate scholars. This is to ensure the country get value for its investment in Higher Education. So far, a total of N10billion has been committed to this programme since its introduction in 2008.

9. CONFERENCE ATTENDANCE FOR CAPACITY BUILDING This is another innovation by the TETFund Nigeria. Since 2008 special allocations are made to all beneficiary tertiary institutions to enable academic as well as non-teaching staff attend academic and professional conferences to sharpen and renew their knowledge and competences. This is with a view to building the needed capacity in the sector. It is expected that at these Conference, Scholars will andshare new knowledge and cross-fertilize knowledge and experiencesfor self imjprovement and capacity building. In 2011, a total of N20million was allocated to every University for this purpose.

10. LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT FOR CAPACITY IMPROVEMENT In its bid to improve Library Services for Higher Education, the TETFund also provides annual funds for the improvement of Library facilities and services. This will in turn help teachers have access to facilities that could impact on their teaching and research capabilities. A total of N25million was set aside for this purpose per each University in the 2011 allocations.

11. JOURNAL PUBLICATION INTERVENTION Under this programme, Journal Publications are encouraged and Universities and other tertiary institutions are allocated funds to provide platforms to scholars to publish their research findings thus promoting academic scholarship for capacity building. A total of N10million was set aside for each University for this purpose in 2011.

12. ZONAL CENTRAL TEACHING AND RESEARCH LABORATORIES It is amazing that no Nigerian Laboratory ranks among the top 1,000 in the world. This has profound effect on the capacity of Nigerian Scholars to carry out research. To address this challenge, six World Class Laboratories located in the Oldest University in each geo-political zone are being constructed. The labs will house some of the most advanced scientific, analytical and engineering equipment in Nigeria including the First Clean Rooms of any laboratory in Nigeria. The cost was built into the intial N5billion allocated each of the 6 Universities under the High Impact Intervention in 2009. It is believed that this will help in the conduct of research work by Scholars from within and outside Nigeria.

13. CONCLUSION All of the above are geared towards building a new cohort of scholars with sufficient capacity to contribute to the challenge of sufficient scholars in the African Higher Education Sector.

14. Thank you For Listening