Length of Service and Attrition Rate Among the Teaching Staff in Public and Private Nigerian Universities

Abstract

The length of service based teaching staff attrition in South West Nigerian universities was looked at from 2014/2015 to 2018/2019 academic sessions, and variables such as academic qualification, academic discipline and gender were covered. Four research questions were raised to guide the study. The study was a descriptive research that adopted the ex-post-facto research design. Seven universities (3 federal, 2 state and 2 private) formed the sample of the study that covered teaching staff from the categories of Assistant Lecturers to Professors in the schools of Humanities, Sciences and Engineering. A checklist was used for the data collection. The data collected from the sampled universities were analysed using rate statistic (Attrition rate). The findings revealed that the length of service produced varied rates of attrition along academic qualifications, academic disciplines and gender perspectives. Based on the findings, it was recommended that: policy and programmes for teaching staff retention which would address both the new and veteran teaching staff should evolve, retention strategies that would be academic qualification biased should be introduced to the school system, academic disciplines driven job resources that would encourage teaching staff retention should be provided and gender based retention policies should be formulated.