Alex Onyia, the Chief Executive Officer of Educare, has criticised severe challenges faced by PhD students in Nigeria, describing their experience as “punishment” rather than an academic pursuit due to the country’s chronic neglect of education and research funding.
Onyia, in a post shared on X (formerly Twitter), compared the experience of doctoral students in Nigeria to those in developed countries.
He noted that while PhD candidates abroad are fully funded, employed, and supported to conduct meaningful research, their Nigerian counterparts pay tuition fees, buy laboratory materials, and finance their fieldwork often with little or no institutional assistance.
He lamented that many Nigerian PhD students are left to navigate academic hurdles on their own, sometimes pleading with supervisors for approval or basic guidance.
Onyia described the situation as a clear reflection of systemic neglect in the education sector, warning that it discourages innovation and undermines Nigeria’s capacity for scientific and social development.
While questioning how a country can develop when even its researchers are self-sponsored, Onyia urged the government and relevant education authorities to establish sustainable funding mechanisms for postgraduate research.
He maintained that supporting researchers is crucial to national progress, noting that no country can achieve meaningful development when its brightest minds are forced to struggle for the tools to learn and innovate.
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