The search for academic excellence: The hard facts and bitter truths

Abstract

Globalization, with its attendant competitiveness in almost all human endeavours, has brought in its wake a renewed surge for quality in higher education. The searchlights have been thrown on, not only on the traditional areas such as the quality of lecture rooms, Lecturers, Libraries and performance of students, but on such other things like the quality of academic leadership as the driving force that greases the clogged wheels of higher educational institutions towards attaining the visions and missions of most institutions.  The picture gradually emerging is one where the quality of academic leadership largely determines what will come on the academic agenda for pursuing relevance, access, affordability, equity, efficiency and economy in the 21st Century.  This work seeks to explore the management dimensions of pursuing excellence as a strategic objective through building partnerships with major stakeholders rather than the use of high – handedness. Besides observations, the study relied on literature review. The era of the visionary and motivational leadership appears to be the key for higher educational institutions which seek to stand up to competition in the global arena. The social and political ends of higher education call for not just exemplary leadership, but also human-centred results-oriented approaches to sustainable tertiary institutions of excellence.