The Nigerian Government has banned recipients of honorary degrees from prefixing “Dr” to their names in official, academic, or professional usage, declaring that the use of the title by such recipients constitutes a misrepresentation of academic credentials.
Penpushing reports that Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, disclosed this on Wednesday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, while briefing State House correspondents on two Federal Executive Council approvals that had not been announced at the last cabinet meeting, which held on April 30.
The Minister who appeared alongside the Minister of State for Education, Prof Suwaiba Ahmad emphasized that such prefix will henceforth be treated as academic fraud, with attendant legal and reputational consequences.
Penpushing further reports that Alausa, explained that the policy is designed to end what he described as decades of indiscriminate conferral of degrees for political patronage and financial gain, and to restore public confidence in the integrity of academic titles.
“The recent trend we’ve seen with the award of honorary degrees has revealed a growing abuse and politicisation of this academic privilege. We’ve seen awards being used for political patronage, for financial gain, as well as the conferral of awards on serving public officials, which, as part of the ethics of honorary degree awards, should not happen’, he stated
Penpushing also reports that under the new policy, recipients of honorary degrees may no longer put “Dr” before their names, instead, they must cite the full honorary designation after their name.
“For instance, you can use Chief Louis Clark, D.Lit. (Doctor of Literature, Honoris Causa)” or “Mrs Miriam Adamu, LL.D. Hons. Recipients shall not prefix doctor to their names in official, academic or professional usage. Misrepresentation of honorary degrees as earned academic credentials shall be considered academic fraud and subject to legal and reputational consequences’, he added
Penpushing reports that Alausa said this format clearly reflects the honorary rather than earned academic nature of the award, stressing that the policy also restricts the types of honorary degrees Nigerian universities can confer to four: Doctor of Laws (LL.D), Doctor of Letters (D.Lit), Doctor of Science (D.Sc), and Doctor of Humanities (D.Arts).
The government equally bars universities without active PhD-awarding programmes from conferring honorary degrees at all, emphasizing that the restriction was aimed at addressing the proliferation of newer institutions that have been awarding honorary doctorates despite being less than five years old and lacking postgraduate research programmes.
Penpushing further reports that the minister pointed out that all honorary degrees must carry the words “honorary” or “Honoris Causa” on the award certificate and in all references.
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