Apostle King Smith writes: The Quagmire Of Sonnie Badu’s PhD, MA and BA. In Four Months.

I have observed with interest the interplay between Sonnie and his critics relative to the former’s academic laurels. Social media again is awash with parody directed towards the celebrated gospel minister.

Undoubtedly, Sonnie remains one of the traveled musical voices from Africa in contemporary times. However, I am unable to vouch for him in the area of academia, especially when he purports to have finished a PhD in four months.

For a PhD, one will require a masters degree ( MA, MSc, MEd, MTh, Mphil etc). Some Phds will allow you in with a very good first degree but you will still have to take a masters before starting your research for the PhD degree.

The least number of years one is expected to complete a masters program is one year. The component of course work for any masters is non negotiable.

In addition to your course, as a partial fulfillment of your program, you are required to write a term papers ( not sure if this still exists), a dissertation or thesis.

The least of all is the term paper. Once ability to go through these, lands him/her a masters degree. MAs in Ghana often take a year but in some other countries, they will take two years.

Often the nomenclature of these masters can be misleading. A master of art is no less than a master of philosophy. However, the possibility may exist in Ghana when you hold a one year master degree going for a PhD in a school like KNUST you may be asked to do a “top up” before starting the PhD. Others may be different. During my Mphil course work, I sat in same class with PhD candidates who had Mphil in different areas of study. For the PhD candidates with same Mphil as I was doing at the time, did not have to take the lecture and write the exams.

For a Phd, most schools will require of you to still take the course work, often by auditing the courses before your research.

The objective of a thesis, especially at the PhD level is to identify some hiatuses and fill same as your way of contributing to knowledge.

This exercise is a lonely yet daunting one. After going through literature ( this helps in identifying what has been done in that area among others ) , you put together a research proposal. Some schools will have a panel look at your proposal, though even at the point of entry, at the application stage you may be required to present a proposal.

Post this stage are many other stages that will take you over a year if you are fully concentrating on the research. Amongst these include a good literature review, by this time your note book and computer would have been flooded by tons of notes and papers respectively. Before going to the field for data, your supervisors will again go through your methodology and data collection instruments to be sure you are on the same page. Comments and some corrections will be made before setting out to the field. This mostly will relate to those that seek to use primary data. Some PhD thesis are 100% secondary data.

The underlying denominator for both users of secondary and primary data is that you will need to analyze your data. Mention is not made of data cleaning. Remember at every stage of your work, there is a possibility to go back to make one or two changes. These processes don’t happen in four months !

Remember there is always a percentage of originality that must come with your work at the end of the day. Some institutions require of the originality to be 80% and above and some even may ask for 85% and above. Some students may decide to check after every chapter while others do after the work is over. The most important thing is to have an ‘original’ work at the end of the day.

Having a PhD may sound nice, but the journey to having it, undoubtedly is tough. Imagine not using over 50% of articles you downloaded. If you want to be addressed as a Doctor, pay the “doctoral” price! . Conduct due diligence before accepting admission to some institutions. There is a proliferation of faux institutions awarding fake degrees. Beware of academic fraud!

Let the frog and lion, continue to live in harmony as both are relevant to the ecosystem!

This article was authored by Apsotle MW King Smith of the Amazing Grace Commission.