Researcher blames brain drain for inadequate PhD numbers

Researcher at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Professor Richard Odame Phillips, has associated the inadequacy of lecturers, preferably PhD holders, in Ghanaian universities and industries to brain drain of professionals on the African continent, reports 3News.com.

While bemoaning the inadequacy of researchers on the continent, he noted that less than 1% of scientific articles published worldwide include at least one author based in an African institution. Irrespective of the inadequacy, he further disclosed that Africa still loses some 20,000 professionals to high-income countries every year thereby putting Africa in need of a million new PhDs to catch up with the rest of the world.

Delivering a keynote address at the second Annual Postgraduate Conference at KNUST on the theme “Harnessing Postgraduate Research to Achieve Sustainable Development Goals”, Phillips, who is scientific director of the Kumasi Center for Collaborative Research, said he is pessimistic about Africa achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. “Data collected by the British Council and DAAD in a study done in Ghana shows comparably low research productivity with inadequate staff with PhDs. A consistent lack of funding and support for PhDs were evident in that report,” he said.
Full report on the 3News site