• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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NUC moves to stop ‘fake professors’ in Nigerian universities

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The National Universities Commission (NUC) has begun a process to curb the epidemic of fake professors in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions by directing university vice-chancellors to compile a list of full professors in their various institutions.

Noel Biodun Saliu, the director of academic planning of the commission on behalf of Abubakar Rasheed, the executive secretary of NUC in a letter to all the vice-chancellors asked them to forward the list of all professors which must include the names of the professors, department, year of professorship, and area of specialisation.

This is coming at the heels of the commission’s discovery of the prevalence of fake professors in the country’s tertiary institutions.

The commission earlier in November 2019, said it uncovered about 100 fake professors in the Nigerian universities.

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The executive secretary of the commission made this known during a retreat with vice-chancellors, when he explained that the commission had to send their names to the various universities for verification, adding that the details of the fake professors had been published on the official website of the commission.

“About 100 fake professors also uploaded their details but we detected them. This measure helped in identifying fake professors in the system. The fight against fake professors is a collective responsibility,” Rasheed said.

The commission, however, explained that it received a letter from the office of the secretary to the government of the federation on the need to check fake professors in Nigerian universities.

Recall that in December 2019 NUC had said that there were possibly more than 100 fake professors across Nigerian universities.

According to Rasheed, the NUC boss, “As part of measures at repositioning our universities, the NUC through its STRADCOM, recently verified and published a full directory of professors in the Nigerian university system.

“In the process of validating the submissions, university senates have, in some cases, uncovered that quite a number of professors are either fake or are yet to mature to full professors.”