How to save our professors

Professors and Doctors of Philosophy are wonderful people: they have what many of us do not and that is the opportunity, determination and patience to further their education. They have the tenacity to read and continue reading where others would have opted for other things. They have the opportunity to impart information albeit with various degrees of success to the young generation and the not-so-young. Professors and PhDs can be resourceful and by using information gathered from the different sources they can come up with ideas that can be built on to make life better. It is unfortunate some of them have their qualifications go to their heads, and look down upon us mere mortals with contempt but generally many are self respecting which in response generates respect for them from us. In many parts of Africa, Professors and PhDs are considered to be super-intelligent and are diverted from their passion which is research, research and more research. In one neighbouring country a Professor in Agriculture was appointed the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture and after a short period the good old Professor was prosecuted for corruption and negligence and causing financial loss to the Government and consequently the Nation. The loss amounted to 300.000.000 in the local currency. The Professor, a staunch Catholic, swore by the Virgin Mother that he had never taken a single coin and was a victim of personal vendetta. But the prosecutor thought otherwise and said he would prove “beyond reasonable doubt” that the good old Professor should be found guilty and punished. Indeed the Professor was found guilty and sentenced to several years in prison. Those who saw the Professor on his way to prison said the tears flowed nonstop, which might have prompted the Head of State to use the powers vested in him to pardon the old Professor. In countries where there are many Professors it is bad when one of them is sent to Prison but it is very, very bad when a couple of the few Professors in Rwanda, a country where opportunities to acquire education for over four decades were allocated basing on one’s ethnicity and even those who survived the ethnic vetting were butchered by their students and fellow Dons during the Genocide, are sentenced to prison due to poor management. Not those Professors should be above the law and like other citizens should be answerable for their actions. But they should be judged against what they studied and qualified for in the first place. For example the Professor, who was sent to Prison for mismanagement in the neighbouring country, should have been judged against his ability to gather and impart knowledge in the Faculty of Agriculture and not through how he managed public finances because management is not his calling nor passion. He should have been judged by his published work and new research in the field of crop husbandry and improved drought resistant crop varieties and not failure to explain the whereabouts of source documents, invoices and receipts for payment for goods and services received. It is unfortunate to send a PhD in Psychiatry or Zoology to prison, because there is no Goods Received Note (GRN) on record or the tendering process was not followed to the letter. Many PhDs do not study management and consequently find problems managing people and other resources. One Professor is reported to have stood in the doorway of his office and ordered his Secretary to draft a letter dismissing a senior employee. Understandably, Professors learn to trust and depend on their Secretaries considering the amount of literature that is researched and stored. But it is risky instructing them to draft documents that may have legal and administrative implications irrespective of their experience in administrative and clerical duties. This may explain some Professor’s lack of attention to detail when they are appointed to Executive positions as Director Generals or heads of Institutions as they extend their trust from Secretaries to Directors of Finance many of whom are either crafty or outright criminals. And when a document in the tender process is hidden or cannot be found, the Professors are made answerable as the accounting officers. My humble proposal to the sages that our professors are is that they answer their calling and advance human understanding through research and even more research. What they do, benefits human kind in general and not themselves nor people close to them. I would also urge them to resist the temptation to take on executive jobs irrespective of the benefits that accrue to holders of such positions. A Professor engaged in grafting seedlings or researching on coffee or banana wilt disease is likely to attract fewer enemies and public attention, than one appointed DG where he controls money and people. The benefits that will follow a breakthrough in the fight against pests that hamper food production or demographical research will benefit the nation even when they are no longer living. It is better to utilize the information Professors have accumulated over the years, than having them incarcerated because they failed to fulfill their duties in a field they never had training in the first place. Kindly Professors and PhD holders, be kind to us and your own selves: turn down executive positions and appointments, and instead put on your dust-courts, gumboots or reading glasses and research for and disseminate information. It is your calling and that way you serve humanity and yourselves better. Email: ekaba2002@yahoo.com