Ogundipe Harps on Credible Research to Sustain Quality Education
Uchechukwu Nnaike
The Chairman, Governing Board, National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, has called on universities to step up efforts in promoting quality education through research. He said postgraduate education is key in advanced knowledge creation and innovation in Nigeria.
Ogundipe stated this in a plenary paper, ‘Rebuilding Academic Integrity in Nigerian Postgraduate Education; Governance, Innovation and Sustainable Institutional Reforms’, delivered at the 67th meeting of the Committee of Provosts and Deans of Postgraduate Colleges and Schools in Nigerian Universities, at the Redeemer’s University Ede, Osun State.
Ogundipe, the immediate past Vice-Chancellor, University of Lagos, said the value of the postgraduate schools and colleges’ research and degrees, rests on academic integrity, honest research and accurate attribution, adding that postgraduate schools are hubs for responsible data management and fair assessment.
According to him, where integrity is weakened, the credibility of the country’s postgraduate degree declines, international research collaboration also becomes harder and public confidence in the universities erodes.
“Concerns such as plagiarism, contract writing, unacknowledged use of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) and weak supervision, are often treated as individual moral failures to be detected and punished.
“This paper argues that they are better understood as symptoms of institutional conditions, inadequate research resources and limited ethics training.
“They are also understood as overstretched supervision and uneven governance. Sanctions remain necessary, but on their own they cannot rebuild integrity,” he stated.
The don added that academic integrity remains an institutional responsibility and not individual, calling on Nigerian postgraduate schools to move from a predominantly punitive approach, to a proactive culture of integrity.
This, he argued must be supported by effective governance, responsible use of technology, as well as quality supervision.
He highlighted structural vulnerabilities, rather than isolated instances of individual misconduct as some of the integrity challenges facing the country’s universities.
According to him, inadequate research resource iss another key challenge facing the universities, saying that more than 60 per cent of postgraduate students lack essential research tools. He identified under funding aa a major constraint.
“The implication of this is that there will be pressure to cut corners, in order to meet degree requirements.
“Another challenge is that of limited research ethics training. Findings have shown that fewer than 30 per cent postgraduate students receive formal research ethics (Akpan 2024).
“The implications of this is that there is usually weak understanding of attribution data management and research ethics. There is also the issue of limited access to plagiarism-detection software, which is another major challenge.
“The implication of this too is usually inconsistent screening of thesis, as well as dissertations and publications,” he said.
Ogundipe further cited unguided use of generative AI. This he said can amount to the risk of AI generated texts or data being presented as original work, among others.
The Professor of Botany then urged provosts and deans within their existing authority and largely within existing resources, to make research ethics training mandatory for all postgraduate students.
This, he said should be initiated before proposal defence, drawing on existing faculty expertise and freely available online resources.
He also called for the introduction of supervision agreements with agreed meeting schedules, a feedback service standard and monitor compliance through the postgraduate school.
Ogundipe also stressed the need for the issuance of school guidelines on responsible AI use, including a disclosure requirement for theses, dissertations and seminar papers.
“There should also be fair and consistent similarity checking of all theses and dissertations, with reports reviewed by supervisors and examiners, rather than applied mechanically, among others,” he said.
According to him, integrity cannot be policed into existence, saying that it must be governed into structures, supported by responsible technology and live through quality supervision everyday.
