RETENTION STRATEGIES AND PRODUCTIVITY OF ACADEMIC STAFF IN UNIVERSITIES IN THE SOUTH-WEST, NIGERIA

Abstract

Productivity of Academic Staff (PAS – measured by research and teaching output) remains a major source of recognition for Universities. In Nigeria, the low PAS, as evidenced by the rating of most of the country’s Universities in international rankings, has become a matter of concern to stakeholders. Extant studies focused on leadership and governance, infrastructural facilities, social factors and organisational ethics with little attention to Academic Staff Retention Strategies (ASRS). This study, therefore, was designed to investigate the contributions of retention strategies (motivation, mentoring, career development and participatory decision making) to PAS in public universities in the South-west, Nigeria.

The study was anchored on the Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory, while the correlational survey design was adopted. Multi-stage sampling procedure was adopted. Three states were randomly selected from the South-west, Nigeria. From each state, the Federal and most populous State Universities (University of Ibadan, Ibadan; Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta; Federal University of Technology, Akure; Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso; Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye and Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko) were purposively selected. Proportionate to size technique was used to select 1,850 AS, while two of the students being taught by each of the AS and the Deputy Registrars (DRs) (Human Resources – AS) were purposively selected from the six universities in 2017. The Motivational Factors (ɤ =.78), Mentoring (ɤ =.84), Career Development (ɤ =.83), Participatory Decision Making (ɤ =.88) and Teaching Assessment Rating (ɤ =.83) scales were used for data collection. Six sessions of key informant interview were held with the DRs. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson product moment correlation and Multiple regression at 0.05 level of significance, while qualitative data were content analysed.

Respondents were professors (141), associate professors/readers (79), senior lecturers (233), lecturer I,s (303), lecturer II,s (262) and assistant lecturers (365). Motivation ( =2.61) of academic staff and participatory decision making ( =2.74) were high, while mentoring ( =2.32) was low as against the threshold of 2.5. Sponsorship for conferences ( =2.52), the only common career development programme available for academics, was neither adequate nor regular. The PAS, in teaching and research ( =2.99) was high. Publications of each academic staff were on-shore articles ( =13), conference papers ( =11), off-shore articles (=10) and chapters in books (=7). Production of textbooks ( =2), patent ( =1), bibliographies ( =2) and book review ( =2) by academic staff was very low. Participatory decision making (r = 0.11) and career development (r = 0.10) had significant relationships with PAS, while motivation and mentoring did not. Retention strategies made significant contribution to the PAS (F(4; 1385)=5.92, Adj. R2=.13), accounting for 13.0% of variations in the dependent variable. Participatory decision making (β = 0.09) and career development (β = 0.07) contributed significantly to PAS, while motivation and mentoring did not. Few cases of formal mentoring policies for academic staff were reported, with most mentoring opportunities focusing mainly on research and publication.

Participatory decision making process and career development fairly enhanced the productivity of academic staff in public universities in the South-west, Nigeria. It is recommended that University authorities should make adequate provisions for career development opportunities and encourage productivity of textbooks and patent among academic staff.