Table of Contents

INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION

Academic Staff Attrition at African Universities

Wisdom J. Tettey
Wisdom J. Tettey teaches in the Faculty of Communication and Culture at University of Calgary. Address: Faculty of Communication and Culture, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada T2N 1N4. E-mail: tettey@ucalgary.ca.

African universities continue to contend with a shortage of academic staff and so do not seem capable of mobilizing the intellectual strength needed to drive capacity-building efforts on the continent. To address this situation of a declining professoriate, a study was conducted at five African universities, with support from the World Bank, to identify mechanisms for university staff retention that are feasible in Africa under currently severe financial constraints. The institutions were the Universities of Botswana, Ghana, Ibadan, Kwa-Zulu Natal, and Makerere. The study was limited to particular fields of expertise, which have been identified as the most vulnerable to brain drain: health sciences, engineering, business, economics, and computer/information science. We sought to understand factors behind staff attrition, analyze what the case study institutions are doing to address them, and suggest feasible responses to the problem. This article focuses on the first two objectives.

Self-administered survey questionnaires were distributed to all academic staff in the targeted disciplines, at each of the selected universities, who did not hold administrative positions. They were anonymously completed, and the response rates were as follows: University of Botswana, 16.2?percent; University of Ghana, 20.14?percent; Kwa-Zulu Natal, 19?percent; and the University of Ibadan, 62?percent. In addition to the surveys, personal interviews were conducted with department heads, deans, and provosts in charge of the units representing the targeted fields of expertise, as well as with pro-/deputy vice-chancellors, vice-chancellors, and presidents of faculty associations.

Following the surveys and interviews, we organized workshops on each of the campuses to share our preliminary results with a representative group from the target units, as well as other members of the university community—including graduate students, members of senate, and human resource personnel. This forum provided an opportunity to revise or validate earlier findings and to get further input from those who did not participate in the surveys or interviews.

Recruitment and Retention
All the target units and disciplines appear to have difficulty recruiting staff at the same time as some of them are losing existing staff. Ten members of staff in the Economics Department at the University of Ghana, most of whom were of the rank of senior lecturer have, for example, resigned over the last three years, mostly to take up positions with local and international organizations outside of academia.

In those departments where there is no significant attrition, the problem of recruitment is nevertheless a reality. They cannot compete with other institutions because of relatively poorer conditions of service. According to a senior lecturer at the University of Ghana, "compared with our colleagues in other public institutions in the country, what lecturers receive as salaries are peanuts." Even the University of Botswana, which has been quite successful in attracting and retaining staff, is beginning to see its attractiveness as an employer eroded and is looking at a future that could be more challenging. The recruitment problem, in all cases, is compounded at senior levels, because the services of individuals at those ranks, in the target disciplines, are in high demand in a competitive job market.

A number of respondents indicated that they had thought about leaving their institutions over the past five years, but the number that had actually sought other jobs, or received offers, was very negligible. This suggests that most academic staff think that they have chosen the right professions and will remain in it, unless conditions become unbearable. Findings show that academic staff at the junior ranks (i.e., assistant lecturers and lecturers) are more likely to leave than their more senior counterparts. This pattern could be attributed to the fact that mobility is maximized by the potential for promotion among the junior ranks.

In addition to the difficulties universities are encountering in attracting and retaining younger academics, there is evidence that some academic staff, approaching the decade prior to retirement, get very anxious about the financial trepidations that tend to accompany retirement. As noted by a respondent at Makerere, "what happens to people when they retire has not been a good testimony to people who may want to stay longer in this University." They, therefore, make decisions about quitting academia at a good enough time and taking up positions that are better paying and thus will ensure a more comfortable retirement, even if they do not get a large pension.

A disconcerting trend is the small number of students in graduate programs at African institutions. Part of the reason for this state of affairs is the lack of resources to maintain significant research-based graduate programs, but the unattractiveness of academic jobs, because of unappealing salaries, is another factor that does not excite students to enter the existing programs.

This means that most graduates are not choosing academic careers, which implies that the existing stock of academics will not be replenished at a rate that is capable of sustaining their operations at optimal levels. The University of Botswana's Staff Development Fellowships and Makerere University's Staff Development Fund, which is supported from internally generated income, are examples of initiatives that have helped staff to obtain advanced training. Makerere University has, since 1998, set aside 7?percent of its privately generated funds each year to support staff development. Since its inception to date, the Staff Development Fund has been able to support 400 staff members to attain doctoral degrees, both from Makerere and other institutions around the world. The Leadership and Equity Advancement Program at the University of Kwazulu-Natal, is a commendable formal mentoring effort aimed at staff recruitment and development.

Institutional Climate and Governance
The findings reveal that there are benefits to devolving some decision-making authority to units, instead of centralizing everything at the top. Devolution helps expedite action on issues and gives the units the latitude to be innovative in ways that are germane to their particular circumstances.

Expanded enrollments, without a commensurate increase in the capacity of universities to handle them, have resulted in an atmosphere that is not conducive to learning. Complaints about workload seem to center not so much on the number of courses that staff members teach, but more on the burden that is imposed by teaching large classes. Respondents expressed serious concerns about the impact of workload on their health and that of their colleagues. One respondent from Kwa-Zulu Natal intimated that "the load drove me to depression and I was booked off work." There was also disenchantment in some institutions about inadequate facilities for teaching and research.

One of the ways that some institutions are addressing the concerns expressed is through the levying of Academic Facilities User Fees on students. The proceeds are then disbursed to departments to help them improve facilities. Some governments have instituted innovative schemes that are directed specifically toward supporting infrastructure development and research capacity in universities. Examples are the Ghana Education Trust Fund and Nigeria's Education Tax Fund.

Remuneration and Benefits
Dissatisfaction with salaries is a key factor undermining the commitment of academics to their institutions and careers and, consequently, their decision or intent to leave. Some institutions offer various allowances that supplement staff members' base salaries. Other creative ways of rewarding academic staff include salary "top-ups," which come from income generated through students enrolled in fee-paying programs. While highly commendable, these efforts should not be seen as a substitute for providing academics with "livable" salaries.

While salaries feature prominently in responses, staff are clearly willing to subordinate higher salaries to very good benefit packages that will enable them to live relatively comfortably during their working lives as well as after retirement. They, therefore, put a high premium on good healthcare coverage, car and housing loan schemes, support for children's education, and a reasonable pension. The idea of merit pay and market supplements for academics has met with a lot of controversy and resistance in various universities around the world. Because of the politically charged reaction that they evoke, all of the case study universities shy away from them, certainly in explicit ways.

Conclusion
The situation described above is not peculiar to African universities, but has resonance, albeit at different degrees of resolution, across tertiary educational institutions around the world. African universities should take the initiative in addressing some of the problems identified above, which are within their ability to solve. These include decentralizing authority, promoting communication among different groups, fostering transparency in decision making, and rewarding excellence. They must adopt creative ideas to mobilize resources from the public and private sectors, as well as international partners, to enhance their core mandate. However, the responsibility for revitalizing higher education, in general, and promoting recruitment and retention, in particular, does not lie exclusively with universities. African governments have an obligation to support these institutions with the investment needed to shore up their human resources and other capacities. So do the private sector and the international community, because they all stand to gain from a solid research infrastructure and an adequate complement of excellent teachers and researchers within African institutions of higher education.

[Online] Available: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/soe/cihe/newsletter/Number44/p6_Tettey.htm