A model for estimating student unit cost and staffing requirements for university academic programmes with reference to Kenyan public universities

Abstract

A model for the estimation of student unit costs and the staffing requirements for university academic programmes is presented. The development of the model starts off with the specification of a staff distribution matrix, which sets out the proportions of the various staff levels in a given staff category that are needed to service at a particular degree level. The categories of staff considered are teaching (academic), senior administrative, technical, clerical, and semi-skilled. Within a given category of staff are considered various staff levels, e.g. Professor, Senior Lecturer and Lecturer in the case of the teaching staff category. The academic programmes are considered to be taken at the Bachelor's, Master's and the Doctorate degree levels. Ratios between numbers of staff in a given level within a category, as well as ratios of staff within the category needed to service at the various degree levels are specified a priori. Academic (teaching) student-staff ratios for the various programmes are also set out a priori. Student-staff ratios for the other categories of staff are then computationally derived from the academic student-staff ratios. For each staff category a staff distribution matrix is then worked out. With the staff distribution matrix thus specified, the student unit cost and staffing requirement for a given academic programme are computed through various manipulations on the matrix. As a test example, the model is used to estimate student unit cost and staffing requirements for the six public universities in Kenya.