By Ola Ajayi
IBADAN—PRO-Chancellor, Ajayi Crowther University, Prof. Ayo Banjo has said there would be continued dearth of teaching staff in the country’s tertiary institutions as long as the National Universities Commission, NUC, remains adamant on making the PhD degree a pre-requisite qualification in universities. He said this at the institution’s 2nd convocation held at the institute in Oyo town.

While using accountancy as an example, he noted that no first-rate accountants would be prepared to invest their time in a Ph.D programme when he could otherwise be making money in the private sector.

At the ceremony which witnessed conferment of honorary doctorate degrees on the former Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Theophilus Danjuma, Reverend Abiodun Adetiloye, Retired Primate of Anglican Communion,  Reverend Nichola Okoh, Primate of the Church of Nigeria, and Reverend Gideon Olajide, Retired Bishop of Ibadan, the don said the courses that had been grossly affected by the unrealistic demand of the NUC were Accountancy and Business Studies.

While presenting the 360 graduands to the mammoth crowd that attended the ceremony, the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Kolawole Jayeoba said eleven of them made first class honours.

Banjo said, “for as long as the requirement of a Ph.D for all teachers in the universities is in place, for so long will universities encounter problems in recruiting staff for some highly professional courses”.

As a panacea to the problem of shortage of academic staff in the nations’s universities, the don said, “some individuals should pursue the purely professional training after they have taken a degree in a cognate conventional university discipline like Economics in case of Accountants”