I have always written to support the government’s attempts to raise the quality of the human resource in our universities. The PhD requirement, as I have argued is in order. In recent publications on this platform, I made my arguments in support of the PhD requirements clear.
The problem here however as always, is how good policies can be thoughtlessly and mindlessly implemented. Master’s degree holders are allowed to lecture even in Ivy League universities in the US and Russell Group universities in the UK. Such scholars are normally the most academically promising and gifted students admitted into PhD programmes and offered scholarships known as studentships.
What about here? Now it is good to make PhDs mandatory. But should the policy end there? There is a clear gap between the supply of PhD holders and the demand for PhD holders in this country. What is the government’s contribution towards filling that gap? What institutional mechanisms and incentives exist to bridge the gap between the supply of PhD holders and the demand for them? Or is it a free for all scheme?
Perhaps even more importantly, there is more to quality tutorship than mere certificates. There is the issue of talent, motivation, and effort. It is not enough to have PhD holders lecturing in our universities. If our universities were globally competitive, we need the most talented and motivated PhD holders in our universities too. What is the government’s response to this need?
There has long been an outcry against substandard higher education in this country. But could the problem solely be laid on the doorsteps of the certificates held by the lecturers? Some lecturers have been accused of failing to carry out new groundbreaking research despite the PhDs they hold. In addition, there is often a lack of zest, dynamism and inspiration in our lecture halls. Some old lecturers easily become complacent, regurgitating centuries-old lecture notes and passing them out to students. How would the mandatory PhD requirement alone solve these problems?
I remember vividly how the absence of full-time lecturers in my university impacted the quality of tuition we received. Often, these part-time lecturers shuffled between numerous schools, having little time for each. The result was often missed lectures and absent supervision of dissertations. This problem is largely brought about by a dearth of qualified full-time lecturers in many of our universities.
A seemingly easy way to address this problem is to decree that PhD certificates are mandatory requirements for lecturing. A more challenging task is bridging the gap between a dearth of qualified lecturers and the demand for them. And an even more demanding mission would be to find not just PhD holders to teach, but to find the most talented, motivated and committed lecturers to fill our lecture halls. What is the government’s plan for this?
The UK for instance has seven research councils that support the research of their universities and PhD education of the brightest citizens. A talented and hard-working citizen, therefore, has a clear pathway to academia. The result is a ready supply line for the most talented and qualified scholars to feed their great universities. What about here?
It is true that we may lack the resources of Western nations to support our universities in the manner it is done in the UK for instance. But that is the more reason why we have to cut our coat according to our cloth and implement policies thoughtfully according to local contexts. Blindly lifting policies out of a book and haphazardly implementing them is certainly no way to help our universities achieve global competitiveness.
We have to think deeply, differently and uniquely according to our situation while learning from best practices. And one thing we can learn is that even the best universities in the world allow people without a PhD to teach, particularly undergraduate programmes, once they are on the path of attaining a PhD and this does not in any way compromise the quality of tuition delivered at those world-class universities.
Of course, critics may raise objections that, these scholars are not given full time faculty positions and that at best, they are graduate assistants who work under full time lecturers. Yet the fact that these scholars without PhDs are entrusted undergraduate courses at the best universities in the world should give policymakers here food for thought. Nor does working under senior lecturers defeat this argument. Regardless of the qualification or faculty position of a lecturer, just like in any normal organization, there would always be a hierarchical structure of leadership and supervision.
At the end of the day, it is neither the titles nor the faculty positions of the scholars that count. What counts is the quality of what they do. That is what is going to affect the quality of tuition delivered in those universities. And that is one cue we can take from there.
Scholars can still deliver quality tuition in our universities even when they do not have a PhD tag on their necks. This is possible when the most talented, passionate and committed scholars are recruited and properly directed. Beyond the certificates of lecturers, there are other equally important determinants such as good supervisory systems to ensure that teaching is done well.
Our university policies should not mirror the mistakes of Ghana education service, which focuses on certificates and lesson notes alone, while untrained teachers in shanty private schools outperform the best staffed public schools. Beyond the easy copy and paste, the heavy lifting must be confronted too.
Given that, MA or MPhil holders can enter classrooms in top universities in the world and teach, and given our unique situation of shortage of PhD holders, it is only fair that there is a pathway approach to help talented scholars enter academia. This could take many forms. In the least, it could mean offering lecturing positions to talented scholars when there is evidence that, they are working on the path towards a PhD.
Unfortunately, our policymakers are usually eager to copy the easy part of things while leaving the heavy lifting undone. At the end of the day, there should be a clear idea about what the policy seeks to achieve. If we have to copy, then we have to copy well. The countries that make PhD mandatory also have an oversupply of the most talented PhD holders all over the world because of their attractive incentives that attract the best brains from all corners of the globe.
If in a shortage of resources, we cannot entirely support many bright talents to rise to the top, at least, we should not frustrate their personal efforts to do so? The absence of a pathway to academia for the most motivated and brightest scholars would only reduce our universities into playgrounds for a few elites who could afford a PhD education, who in turn would be burdened with shuffling between several universities, while simultaneously frustrating promising talents out of the system.
That is no way to raise the profile and quality of tertiary education in Ghana. More thinking is required. Beyond PhDs our universities also need fresh talents, zest and dynamism to reinvigorate them. The government can do better by supporting, rather than mindlessly frustrating fresh talents from entering the system through a slapdash implementation of certain policies.
The PhD requirement in our universities is a good initiative. But a second look ought to be taken at how it is being implemented.
The writer, Prosper Kofi Senyo, is the editor at Institute of International Affairs, Ghana (GhIIA).