Why Mrs. Grace Mugabe May Keep Her ‘Hard-Earned’ PhD

Zimbabwe is popular and revered for many unusual happenings in modern times. The country has ever recorded one of the highest inflation rates in the world. When it was Rhodesia, it was a break basket, but it quickly became a basket case after it chased out majority of the white owners of their agricultural lands.

Unemployment soared as economic and political insecurity almost turned the people against the country. Above all, Zimbabwe is most interesting because they have an octogenarian president who has personified and personalized a country where he is neitherczar, a monarch norLord. He is all of these rolled into one powerful man who is powerful indeed.

Zimbabwe is popular for another thing: The University of Edinburgh is reported to have 'taken back' the honorary doctorate it conferred on President Mugabe. Well, the president has about six more of such academic honours to his name. So far, he has been allowed to keep all of them. However, his wife, Grace Mugabe, who was recently awarded a PhD by the University of Zimbabwe, has come under huge pressure for allegedly completing the degree in less than three months. The students of the university also allege that the first lady's thesis cannot be found in any of the libraries of the university, with many in the academic community asking the president's wife to return the award. “It removes the integrity of our academic standing the world over,” award-winning Zimbabwean writer, Chenjerai Hove, recently told the BBC.

Mr. Hove, who is graduate and faculty member of the university but recently domiciled in Norway, also wrote in a letter to the vice-chancellor of the university: “I have lost the pride and prestige of being a former student of the university which you head, since our academic degrees have now become a laughing stock.” The Zimbabwe National Students Union is presently preparing to proceed to the courts, to pray the judiciary to compel the university to provide some explanation for the first lady's PhD.

Typically, it takes some four years to complete a PhD programme. Well, some smart ones are able to make it in three years. If Mrs. Mugabe completed her degree in less than three months, then she must be very smart. In North America, PhD is very serious business. I have seen some of my friends abandon their PhD programmes because of frustrations from their supervisors and the unbearable work load. Over there, being enrolled on a PhD programme is no achievement; you have to study extremely hard to pass the comprehensive examinations before you are allowed to officially proceed as a PhD candidate. That means that not all those who gain admission to pursue a PhD programme have the intellectual capacity and academic discipline to complete it.

In Europe, there are no comprehensive examinations, but your proposal and statement of purpose must be very strong. Gaining admission on to a PhD programme is just the beginning of a long, difficult process, where scholarship and originality of thought are judged strictly by fastidious academics who would not add half a mark more to see a student graduate if they miss the mark by a quarter. British universities, especially the very good ones, are keen on the reputation of their institutions and the quality of their students. An alumnus carries the reputation of the university, so it matters who is allowed to pass out with a certificate embossed with the university stamp.

It takes a little over three months to go through these difficult processes to get a PhD. And let's get it clear: not every master's degree caliber has capacity for a PhD research. However, it is possible for a smart student with only a bachelor's degree to successfully complete a PhD in a very good university, if he shows great intellectual curiosity and satisfies the levels of scholarship necessary for such an undertaking. I have bumped into a few Africans in universities abroad who used this route to obtain a good PhD. Some have even ended up lecturing in the same universities they studied.

A PhD programme in Africa is not any easier. There are laborious application procedures and strict academic requirements. Usually, an applicant should have completed very good research work at the master's degree level, to be considered for admission. There are occasions where some good students have been urged by their professors to extend their master's degree research to a PhD, especially when the students have shown great originality in a research that has potential to contribute to the body of knowledge in a particular field. The professors would guide you through the processes. Some candidates have also been supported by well-intentioned professors to obtain admission and scholarship to good universities in advanced countries.

However, a PhD programme in Africa is more frustrating and usually takes much longer. When I was in Legon, I met students who had spent six years on their PhD programme because their theoretical framework and methodology had been faulted by their supervisors. The students often blamed the professors for not being very serious about their work and sometimes accused them for simply being lazy and wicked. Yet, even as a young sophomore new to university life, I thought the PhD students were lazier than their professors. Apart from their age, nothing told them apart from some of us. They didn't stay longer in the libraries and didn't seem very hungry for knowledge.

A PhD sets a person apart. It is not for bibliophobes; it is for the bookish fellow who wants to contribute something new to knowledge. Not everybody has the patience to endure the frustrating ways of boring supervisors. Smart students can set the agenda and define their own standards. Mrs. Mugabe has provoked the academic community of Zimbabwe to wake up, review and rethink the long years required to complete a PhD in many African universities. And just by the way, how good is an online PhD?

KwesiTawiah-Benjamin
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