In my opinion, academic conferences (ACs) are (very) necessary in the tertiary institutions of higher learning, as it creates a platform for knowledge sharing and exchange. Scholars from all walks of life dare to attend because, they believe they will gain useful "something." Sadly, these conferences run for only two or three (maximum) days: a duration some scholars and institutions may find unnecessary to spend a lot of money for.

If the impact of AC is to network for further collaboration, look for external examiners for your faculty/department/students, peer review of pedagogical practices for the sake of standardisation, then 2/3 days are just not good enough.

Therefore, I think/suggest that:

• AC should have minimum of 5/7 days, whereby, experts in their various fields can be invited to come and share their experiences and how they made it, new trends and current research areas that can advance our lives.
• Experts in analytical software that are more appropriate for the chosen field to come and empower scholars in that discipline (I hate giving my work to someone to analyse for him to tell me the outcome). When you analyse yourself, you gain more insights that can lead to multiply knowledge creation.
• The suggested duration can help to achieve the listed impacts in the second paragraph.

Who can afford not to attend a conference of such benefits? and who will dare to say that such a conference is of little benefit?

I invite comments!