A postgraduate student by the name Gradius, has related the experience he had during a doctoral defense in the University of Nigeria Enugu Campus, according to him, What he saw gave him strong hope for our educational system.
He wrote;
I felt obligated to share this.
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I am a prospective postgraduate student, so I decided to attend a scheduled doctoral defence with the hope of acquainting myself with the technique of academic paper presentations. What I saw gave me strong hope for our educational system.
A doctoral student (whom I later found to be called Chukwunonso Oraedu) was called up to present and defend his thesis. This young man spoke with strong boldness and courage. To the extent that everyone in the hall was dazzled by his level of clarity. The examiner was just nodding his head and with rapt attention. It was as if he was teaching the lecturers and the examiner.
At some point, just to be sure that the examiner was following, the young man asked the Prof. “do you understand me?” The examiner, including the Dean and some lecturers burst into laughter. The examiner was so impressed that he acknowledged minimal errors in his thesis. They even had to called out the wife because the young stated that she is his editor. She was given a standing ovation.
I decided to know more about the follower, then, I discovered that he graduated with First Class (honour) in both his B.Sc and M.Sc degrees and has published widely in both Thomson Reuters and Scopus indexed journals. In fact, I overheard a lecturing telling someone “I follow him on researchgate” “he is a serious scholar “. One of them was saying “this is a material, he shouldn’t be working in UNTH”. I later discovered that he is working in a hospital. According to him he has tried venturing into lecturing but the politics of getting employed is too much.
I had to get close to ask: why this interest in academics whereas gaining employment in there is quite a challenge for you? He said, he has an answer to a lot of questions in the system. He said “students are being deceived” and he wish to go in and correct some of the outdated ideologies in the system. He kept saying “I am on assignment” “I have a revelation on how we can send men (students) on their respective journey”. He said academic should inspire students and not torment them.
He said if not for his Pastor – he may not have embraced this challenge. He said he had to buy PG form three times when his supervisor during his M.Sc wanted to frustrate him. He was out for it, because he may not be able to achieve the agenda if he does not bag his PhD. He was full of praises for his Pastor…he said he has been a one-stop-advice centre for him in all life issues.
Shortly before we ended our conversation, he said, young girl remember my name because you will hear it over and over again. And remember what I told you about my agenda in the educational system. It will happen!
