HUMAN RESOURCE UTILIZATION AND INTERNAL EFFICIENCY IN STATE-OWNED UNIVERSITIES IN NIGERIA

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1 HUMAN RESOURCE UTILIZATION AND INTERNAL EFFICIENCY IN STATE-OWNED UNIVERSITIES IN NIGERIA Abstract Dr. A. Y. Abdulkareem Department of Educational Management, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria. E.mail: Dr. Y. A. Fasasi Department of Educational Management, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria. E.mail: Dr. O. P. Akinnubi Department of Educational Management, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria. E.mail: This paper examined the relationship between human resource utilization and internal efficiency in Nigerian state universities. It was a descriptive survey research. Stratified random sampling technique was adopted for selecting 6 out of 12 state-owned universities. Also, 572 lecturers were sampled from Humanities and Science Faculties of the institutions. They responded to Human Resource Checklist (HRC) and Internal Efficiency Checklist (IEC) designed by the researchers and validated by experts in the field of educational management. Student Teacher Ratio, Refined Cohort Wastage Rate and Graduation Rate were used to answer three research questions raised in the study. Pearson product-moment correlation statistic was used to test the formulated research hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. The study revealed over-utilization of teachers, low wastage rate with a mean of 23%, and high graduation rate with a mean of 85%. Also, there was a significant relationship between human resource utilization and internal efficiency in Nigerian state universities (calculated r-value=.347 > critical r-value =.06, p <.05). Based on the findings, it was recommended, among others, that the universities should employ more lecturers in humanities (Faculties of Arts, Business and Social Sciences/Management Sciences and Education) and sciences (Faculty of Science) in order to reduce the workload of the existing lecturers in these discipline. Key words: Human resource utilization, internal efficiency, state- owned universities, Nigeria. Introduction In Nigeria, the society depends on educational institutions for production of individuals who can fit properly and contribute meaningfully to the development of the environment. Universities, as the highest educational institutions, are statutorily charged with the responsibility of producing high level manpower. In addition, the institutions are to: Develop and inculcate proper values for the survival of the individual and society; Develop the intellectual capacity of individual to understand and appreciate their local and external environments; and 26

2 Promote national and international understanding and interaction (Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2004 p.36). In pursuit of these goals, the Federal Government established universities and allowed state governments, private organizations and individuals to establish theirs. Thus, universities in Nigeria are owned by Federal Governments, State Governments, private organizations and private individuals. In these institutions, human (academic and non-academic staff), material and financial resources are made available, and students are admitted annually to undergo various programmes. In admission process candidates usually give preference to university education as a source of high level manpower while other tertiary institutions such as polytechnics and colleges of education are less patronized. This has lead to an increase in demand for and subsequently enrolment into the universities. The expectation is that graduates from these institutions would become productive workers and good citizens who would be able to contribute to the development of their society and make the nation truly self reliant. However, according to Babalola (2007), many of them wonder around without gainful engagements. This implies that the nation s aspiration which has led to investment in education is yet to be actualized and resources are wasted. This situation calls for a re-examination of inputs into the institutions and how the inputs are processed, so that necessary measures will be taking to prevent wastages. All educational resources are vital to the achievement of national objectives. Human resources, especially the academic staff are to control other resources and ensure that national goals and objectives are achieved. As observed by Afolabi (2005), no matter how beautiful the programmes and assets of an institution are, without the academic staff, attainment of the institutional goals and objectives would prove abortive. In this paper, human resource utilization and its influence on internal efficiency of state-owned universities in Nigeria, is examined. Specifically, the purposes of this study are: i. To examine student-teacher ratio in the state universities in Nigeria. ii. To determine students wastage rate in the universities. iii. iv. To determine the graduation rate in the universities. To examine the relationship that exists between resource utilization and internal efficiency in Nigerian universities. Human Resource Utilization Human resources are the people who constitute the workforce in an organization. According to Olagboye (2004), people and knowledge, skills and attitudes in them constitute resources. Okwori (2006) agreed with this assertion and added that expertise in technical, mechanical, managerial, social and other areas potentially available for utilization in social and economic institutions constitute human resources. University as an educational institution has teaching staff, non-teaching personnel and students including their knowledge, abilities and skills as the human resources. Essentially, the personnel within the institutions and their capabilities in contributing to productivity and achievement of institutional objectives are referred to as human resources. In the university system, the teaching staff is referred to as lecturers and teachers. They are engaged in the processing of all educational inputs, students inclusive, so that the educational institutions will be able to achieve their objectives. They disseminate knowledge and skills through teaching, contribute to advancement in knowledge through research and engage in community services. Their availability and utilization would determine the success or failure of the educational system. A method of determining the extent of teacher s utilization is through the 27

3 number of students assigned to them for teaching and supervision. The National Universities Commission (NUC) has given the number of students a lecturer can conveniently handle on different programmes offered in the universities. These are referred to as students-teacher ratio which varies according to programmes: humanity 30 students to a teacher (30:1); Science 20 students to a teacher (20:1); Medicine 10 students to a teacher (10:1); Agriculture 15 students to a teacher (15:1); and Engineering, 15 students to a teacher (15:1). Students-Teacher Ratio (STR) could be used to determine the number of students that are to be allocated to a teacher in a given educational level. The students-teacher ratio shows a teacher s workload at a particular level of education. It also helps in determining the number of teaching manpower needed for a projected student s enrolment. Thus, it could be used to determine either lecturers are over-utilized or underutilized (Ayo, 1995; Afolabi, 2005). Models for calculation of teachers utilization rate is: Internal Efficiency Efficiency as a concept has its origin in economics. It is the optimal relation between inputs and outputs. The internally efficient educational system is one which turns out graduates without wasting any student-year or without dropouts or repeaters. The system may be externally quite inefficient if the graduate turned out is not what the society, economy or higher level of education wants (Ayo, 1995). According to Padmanabhan (2001), internal efficiency refers to the number of students who pass from one grade to the other and complete that cycle within the stipulated period of time. It shows the relationship between input and output at a given educational level. Gupta (2001) noted that the question of internal efficiency is ultimately linked to the issue of resource allocation and utilization. Student-Teachers Ratio = Total number of students at a given educational level in a year Total number of teachers at a given educational level in a year The indicators of internal efficiency used by Abdulkareem (1989); Fabunmi (1999); and Afolabi (2005) are wastage rate and graduation rate. Wastage rate is caused by students who leave the school system before the completion of their courses. Wastage may also occur between grade level, as a result of students who repeat the grade and those who drop out of the system. Wastage rate could be crudecohort wastage rate or refined-cohort wastage rate. Crude-cohort wastage rate is the percentage of repeaters and drop-outs from the first year to the final year of academic sessions of a given cohort of students, while refined cohort wastage rate is the percentage of those who passed out or the graduates to the enrolment of the cohort. This is based on the fact that not all the students that reached the final year took the final year examination or passed. Graduation rate refers to the percentage of the students that finally leave the system on completion of the course to the total number that enrolled in the final grade of the level. This is very vital to the work of educational planners because it enables them to compute the input-output ratio in determining the efficacy of the system. Owolabi (2000), in his study, submitted that it was unrealistic to compare examination results of schools in terms of successful completion of a particular cycle, without considering the students inputs, drop-outs and repetition in the institution. These are likely to have a great influence on their performance at their final year, he stated. 28

4 Methodology The research design used for this study was a descriptive survey. It yields information concerning the degree of relationship between the variables being studied. Thus, it enables the researchers to find out whether any relationship or associations exist between the variables, the direction and the magnitude of the relationship. The population for this study comprised the 12 state owned universities offering courses in humanities (Faculties of Arts, Business and Social Sciences/Management Sciences and Education) and sciences (Faculty of Science) established before year 2005 in Nigeria. Six out of the 12 universities, that is, 50% were selected as sample for the study through stratified random sampling technique. Furthermore, 572 out of the 1536 lecturers in the universities were selected as sample for the study through stratified random sampling technique. Two instruments titled: Human Resource Checklist (HRC) and Internal Efficiency Checklist (IEC) were designed to obtain necessary data on lecturers and students in the sampled universities. The instruments were validated by experts in the areas of educational management and educational measurement and evaluation Research Questions 1. What is the students-teacher ratio in the state-owned universities? 2. What is the wastage rate in the universities for 2003/2004 cohort? 3. What is the graduation rate in the universities for 2003/2004 cohort? Research Hypothesis There is no significant relationship between human resource utilization and internal efficiency in the state-owned universities in Nigeria. Techniques of Data Analysis Student-Teacher Ratio, wastage rate and graduation rate were used to analyse the three research questions raised in the study. These are considered appropriate for determination of internal efficiency ( Pearson product-moment correlation statistic was used to test the research hypothesis formulated in the study at 0.05 level of significance. Results and Discussion Research Question 1: What is the Students-Teacher Ratio in the state-owned universities in Nigeria? To answer this research question, total number of students and lecturers were obtained in the sampled universities and analyzed as shown in Tables 1 & 2. 29

5 Table 1: Students-Teacher Ratio in Humanities University Students Lecturers STR % 1. Ambrose Ali University Lagos State University Imo State University Nasarawa State University Adamawa State University Ebonyi State University Total Mean STR- Student-Teacher Ratio Source: Fieldwork, 2010 Table 1 shows that 3 (50%) of the selected universities had less than 40%, the mean STR, while 3 (50%) of these institutions had STR above 40%. The STR was above the bench mark of 30:1 in the selected universities, which implies that the lecturers are over utilized in humanities in the institutions. Table 2: Students-Teacher Ratio in Sciences Students Lecturers STR% 1. Ambrose Ali University Lagos State University Imo State University Nasarawa State University Adamawa State University Ebonyi State University Total Mean STR- Student-Teacher Ratio Source: Fieldwork, 2010 Table 2 shows that 3 (50%) of the selected universities had less than 27%, the mean STR, while 3 (50%) of these institutions had STR above 27%. The STR was above the bench mark of 20:1 in the selected universities, which implies that the lecturers are over utilized in sciences in the institutions. Research Question 2: What is the wastage rate in the state-owned universities for 2003/2004 cohort? 30

6 To answer this research questions, students enrolment were obtained in the sampled universities and analyzed as shown in Table 3. Table 3: Wastage Rate in the Sampled Universities Universities 200Level Students (2003/2004) Graduates (2005/2006) Wastage % 1. Ambrose Ali University Lagos State University, Ojo Imo State University, Oweri Nasarawa State University, Keffi Adamawa State University, Mubi Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki Total Mean Source: Fieldwork, 2010 Table 3 shows that 4 (66.7%) of the selected universities had less than 23%, the mean wastage rate, while 2 (33.3%) of these institutions had wastage rates above 23%. The wastage rate was minimal in the selected universities, which implies that internal efficiency was high in the institutions. Research Question 3: What is the graduation rate in the Nigerian state universities for 2003/2004 cohort? To answer this research question, student enrolments were obtained and analyzed as shown Table 4. Table 4: Graduation Rate in the Sampled Universities 400Level Students (2005/2006) Graduates (2006) Graduation % Rate 1. Ambrose Ali University Lagos State University Imo State University Nasarawa State University Adamawa State University Ebonyi State University Total Mean

7 As shown in Table 3, the mean graduation rate in the selected universities was 85%. Furthermore, two (33.3%) universities had less than 85%, while 4 (66.7%) had above 85%. Wastage in education happens as a result of low promotion rate, high repetition rate and high drop out rate. It presupposes that if educational managers carefully and effectively handle educational resources, better results would be achieved. Thus, educational planners and administrators must explore means of reducing wastages. As stated by Fadipe (1992), quality of inputs would influence outputs of the school system. Research Hypothesis There is no significant relationship between human resource utilization and internal efficiency in the state-owned universities. Table 5: Human Resources Utilization and Internal Efficiency Variable N _ SD DF Calculated Critical Decision X r-value r-value Human resource utilization Ho: Rejected Internal Efficiency Table 5 indicates that the calculated r-value (.347) is greater than the critical r-value (.062) at 0.05 level of significance for 570 degrees of freedom. Hence, the null hypothesis which states that there is no significant relationship between human resource utilization and internal efficiency is rejected. Therefore, a significant relationship exists between human resources utilization and internal efficiency in the state-owned universities. The role of the lecturers cannot be underscored in teaching-learning process and in attainment of educational goals at the university level. In fact, the quality of lecturers is a major determinant of the quality of the students and no educational system may rise above the quality of its teachers (Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2004). Lecturers, therefore, as educational engineers and technicians are the souls of any educational system. There is no substitute for lecturers who are dedicated to their institutions thereby resulting into high graduation rate and low wastage rate. Conclusion It could be asserted that the lecturers in the state-owned universities are over utilized. This could reduce the quality of their job performance and consequently the quality of students turned out from the universities. The roles of these lecturers cannot be underscored in the university system since their inputs would influence the extent to which students would be of students prepared to meet future challenges. In fact, quality teaching displayed by lecturers is likely to result to wastage rate and high graduation rate in the university system. 32

8 Recommendations Therefore, the following recommendations are advanced: i. The universities should employ more lecturers in humanities (Faculties of Arts, Business and Social Sciences/Management Sciences and Education) and sciences (Faculty of Science) in order to reduce the workload of the existing lecturers in these disciplines. ii. Wastage rate should be reduced to the barest minimum by ensuring that admission is based more on merit. When admission is based on merit, those admitted are likely to be capable of facing academic challenges and be able to achieve high graduation rate in their institutions. iii. Emphasis should be laid on conferences, seminars and workshops for university staff in order to enhance their professional competency, especially in handling large class size. iv. Student s improvement programmes such as group discussions and tutorials should be encouraged in universities. This could enhance knowledge and skill acquisition and review the incidence of repeaters and drop out. 33

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