ETF sponsorship of lecturers of universities, colleges of education and polytechnics to either study in Nigeria or abroad is not working. This is not because of good intentions or implementation lapses on the part of the ETF but because the benefitting institutions which should encourage it are frustrating the efforts – but that is assuming that the people populating those institutions are sane or know what they're doing.
As you would realize presently, they are not; nor do they know what they're doing.
The training of higher education teachers is nothing original, many nations have done it before us and even successive governments in Nigeria have attempted it before, albeit haphazardly. But because we're not serious with such policies, they all fizzled out – and that's the direction our universities and colleges are inexorably pushing this ETF initiative.
We wonder why we can't get a single thing right.
Let's take the example of a country that got it right – Malaysia. In the 70s and 80s, Malaysia's educational sector was almost barren. "The human resource was limited," Professor Nik Mustafa vice chancellor of University Putra Malaysia told me.
"Our universities didn't have the capacity to accommodate or train the man power we needed," he continued, "so the government decided to sponsor a large number of Malaysians abroad. Of course the oil money helped a lot."
At a time, there were more than 5,000 Malaysian students in United States alone. "We're the largest foreign student body in the US at that time," Nik said.
Many more were sent to the UK, Australia, and Canada. Those who were sent abroad were so many that it's difficult to find a Malaysian lecturer who doesn't have a degree or two from overseas. Because the policy was pursued rigorously, the early 90s ushered in an era of Malaysians who were bouncing home with heads full of ideas and theories on how to better their country. Added to that confidence was the fact they were tutored and supervised by the best in the respective fields; some were actually Nobel laureates.
Thus the universities became an exciting places of learning, "our capacity expanded," Nik said, "we did not only have enough lecturers to teach and research at home, we're also sought after by foreign organizations. For example, I was in Italy working for a UN organization while at the same time a staff of UPM. Such networking was good for our country."
ETF's Sponsorship Of Lecturers, Not Working (http://www.saharareporters.com/article/etf%E2%80%99s-sponsorship-lecturers-not-working)