Abstract
Universities, across the globe, are identified as complex and critical engines for sustainable development. Nigerian universities have recorded success stories and breakthroughs, but they have their teething problems of retention and challenges which tend to impede their position on the world education league table. Retention of employees in the work environment has attracted a lot of attention from scholars in different fields of study to curb the trend of turnover intentions, human capital flight and redundancy of academia in Nigeria. Hence, this paper investigates the impact of workplace environments on the retention of the academic staff of public universities, Southern-Nigeria. The study adopted a cross-sectional and descriptive approach to elicit information from 384 academic staff that were randomly and purposively selected. The use of a modified questionnaire (quantitative) was adopted. The quantitative data were analysed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM_PLS) to obtain results. The findings indicated that the issue of inadequate and decay of infrastructural facilities had been a concern to the sampled universities. Many lecturers, including professors, shared offices that are dilapidated, poorly ventilated and furnished. The results indicated an increasing pauperization, varying promotion criteria, erratic power supply, over-congested classrooms and a growing disparity in the ratio between teaching staff and students. Due to its consequences, strategies for curbing this menace in state universities, such as the creation of enabling environment, adequate funding of tertiary education, effective administration and motivation of staff of the sampled institutions, among others were proffered.
Highlights
Universities, across the globe, are identified as the most complex and critical engines for teaching, research, community impact, and economic development
Nigerians have criticized the government for proposing an allocation lower than 26% of national budget “recommended” by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to the education sector
Based on the impact of organizational climate on the retention of the academic staff of selected universities, the finding from this study shows positive β value .257, which tells that the organizational climate contributes 25.7%
Summary
Universities, across the globe, are identified as the most complex and critical engines for teaching, research, community impact, and economic development. This complexity necessitates a degree of proficiency, scholarship, and proven erudition from university academic staff. The achievement of this becomes imperative because universities, by their distinctive nature, are required to be a fountain of competency, governance, and partnership. Nigeria’s university education has been faced with a high degree of apprehension and recurrent crises of different kinds which have resulted in the incessant strike embarked by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
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