Beyond Compliance: Rethinking Pedagogy and Creative Epistemologies in Nigerian Postgraduate Education
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.65021/mwsj.v2.i3.58Keywords:
Compliance, Creative epistemologies, Decolonisation, Nigerian postgraduate education, PedagogyAbstract
Nigerian postgraduate education drives the nation's research capacity, yet it risks pedagogical inertia when quality assurance, including the National Universities Commission's minimum academic standards and accreditation, is reduced to procedural compliance. This paper rethinks postgraduate education by shifting attention toward pedagogies that foster intellectual agency, dialogue, epistemic plurality and context-sensitive knowledge production. Drawing on critical pedagogy, decolonial theory, Ubuntu and Igwebuike, and situated-learning theory, it uses a critical-integrative conceptual method and a purposive review of policy documents and Nigerian, African and international literature. The evidence is strongest for structural constraints on supervision and staff retention and for the Eurocentric orientation of methodological training in African research, but thin or inferential for prevailing pedagogy and examination practice; these claims are therefore advanced as nine testable hypotheses rather than established facts. The paper proposes four connected commitments (relational supervision, epistemic plurality, creative rigour and public relevance), operationalised through the CARE model (Criticality, Agency, Relationality and Epistemic creativity). It argues that standards should be an enabling floor rather than an intellectual ceiling, that resourcing rather than intent is the main obstacle to reform, and that CARE can be adopted through a staged, low-cost, workload-neutral pathway viable for early-career supervisors and under-funded state universities.
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