Like a hydra-headed monster, professional incompetence is a frightening challenge. Should this incompetence witnessed by the students in Nigerian higher institutions continue unabated, the standards of the institutions will continue to deteriorate.
The public outcry over the quality of the Nigerian graduates is worrisome. Some Nigerian higher institutions have the odious reputation of keeping incompetents as lecturers. Urgent and radical steps need to be taken to mediate the degradation.
A friend shared a memory of his NCE programme in the Yoruba Department, where a lecturer (a young woman) was assigned a course that was obviously beyond her intellectual capacity.
Someone close to the lecturer revealed to the class that the reason she was incapable of meeting their expectation was that she did not actually study the course entrusted to her.
Even without the revelation from the informant, the lecturer’s intellectual weakness was very obvious to the class. She would write Yoruba words with wrong accent marks. She would speak Yoruba like a Lagosian. Simple proverbs are strange to her. They were all displeased with the lecturer’s incompetence.
Considering the negative effect this would have on their pedagogic life as teachers, they swung into action. They approached the school management, had series of meetings and reached a resolution. The management gave them the go-ahead to get lecturers if there were any. Without wasting time, they got two secondary school teachers who successfully taught them Yoruba grammar, phonetics, phonology, culture and literature.
As students, it was not easy to report a lecturer’s incompetence to the school management. They were able to do so because of the nature of the programme, and the management supported them to achieve that. Throughout the programme, they chose lecturers for Yoruba and some English courses themselves.
In most higher institutions, this is the brutal reality of the incompetence the students face. Due to systemic failure, the students lack the boldness to reject or report those incompetents and indolent ones among their lecturers.
In a bid to arrest this ugly occurrence, Lagos State University LASU created a portal that affords the students the opportunity to report lecturers’ incompetence and lackluster attitude to work without revealing the identity of any students or facing sanctions
While this step is laudable, other higher institutions in the country should follow suit by making their lecturers open to scrutiny. The awful truth remains that Nigerian higher institutions still keep incompetents parading themselves as polymaths.
Academic life at the university is more than pathetic. Basic primary school subject is notoriously difficult for many final-year students. After graduation, many of them register for classes where they are taught their university courses over again in order to perform excellently at work.
There are lecturers assigned to teach courses beyond their intellectual capacity. They themselves know they are incapable of teaching the courses assigned to them. They accept the offer and end up teaching gibberish. There are lecturers whose regularity in the school is inconsistent. These lecturers only sell their handouts to the students and surface a day to the exam to treat areas of concentration. They only offer flimsy excuses for their absences. There are also lecturers who are competent to teach their courses but show lacklustre attitude to work. They reassign their courses to some idle or incompetent persons on campus.
The students, who are victims of the pathetic situations, continue to rot in silence. The system never gives room for assessment of lecturers. And anyone who displays the temerity to condemn the institution risks either indefinite suspension, like UNILAG did to Femi Adeyeye, or expulsion.
In many institutions, only a few lecturers are competent and dedicated to work in the system. To know those who are competent to teach, a portal for assessment and scrutiny like that of LASU must be opened by every higher institution. Students will leverage this to express themselves without exercising any fear of intimidation, suspension or expulsion.
