Academic Staff Attrition at African Universities

Abstract

above their initial pledge, benefiting 40 universities in 6 countries , with 23 countries receiving significant funding for sys-temic change. Nearly one-third million students benefited directly, including more than 1,000 female scholarship beneficiaries. The assessment also found that the foundations invested more on higher education than would have been possible without the partnership. One leading initiative is in the area of information and communications technology identified as a priority intervention at a joint workshop with the UN Economic Commission for Africa. With an initial investment of more than $5 million, the partnership commissioned the African Virtual University to consolidate bandwidth demand from several universities and negotiate its acquisition from satellite companies at a significantly lower cost. No single foundation would have had the network and the human resources to start and sustain this effort over time. PHEA has also attracted the attention of other foundations and agencies. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation formally joined the partnership in April 2005. The six foundations have pledged to continue the partnership though 2010 and to invest $200 million over the next five years, expanding the number of beneficiary countries to include Kenya, Egypt, and Madagascar. Four special initiatives will receive joint support: (a) provision of broad-band and utilization of information and communication technology to improve access to information and production of knowledge in African universities; (b) development of research on higher education innovations, institutional transformation, and universities' contribution to development; (c) support to regional networks for research and training; and (d) a university leadership forum to expose academic leaders and policy-makers to relevant science and technology innovation. Despite our best efforts, the partnership has not done enough to coordinate its initiatives with wider and more far-reaching strategies such as those for poverty alleviation, the 2020 national development plans, the Millennium Development Goals, or the sector-development approaches by which government-to-government resources are allocated according to national priorities. Foundations have the advantage of operating "outside" the bureaucracy of government-to-government relations and the flexibility to experiment with new and sometimes risky ideas and projects; however, this does not diminish the importance of keeping a country's strategy in mind. Equally, the partnership has a long way to go in coordinating with other African regional institutions (e.g., the African Development Bank), the World Bank, and other major development agencies that also support education. When the partnership was formed, there was, as is often the case with new endeavors, some skepticism about the venture. As we have worked together and honed our relationship over these past five years, even the most cautious observers began to appreciate the benefits of collaboration. While the African universities will ultimately determine whether our efforts have been successful, there are many signs that our collaboration is bearing fruit. A frican universities continue to contend with a shortage of academic staff and so do not seem capable of mobilizing the intellectual strength needed to drive capacity-building efforts on the continent. To address this situation of a declining professoriate, a study was conducted at five African universities , with support from the World Bank, to identify mechanisms for university staff retention that are feasible in Africa under currently severe financial constraints. The institutions were the Universities of Botswana, Ghana, Ibadan, Kwa-Zulu Natal, and Makerere. The study was limited to particular fields of expertise, which have been identified as the most vulnerable to brain drain: health sciences, engineering, business, economics , and computer/information science. We sought to understand factors behind staff attrition, analyze what the case study institutions are doing to address them, and suggest feasible responses to the problem. This article focuses on the first two objectives. Self-administered survey questionnaires were distributed to all academic staff in the targeted disciplines, at each of the selected universities, who did not hold administrative positions. They were anonymously completed, and the response rates were as follows: University of Botswana, 16.2 percent; University of Ghana, 20.14 percent; Kwa-Zulu Natal, 19 percent ; and the University of Ibadan, 62 percent. In addition to the surveys, personal interviews were conducted with department heads, deans, and provosts in charge of the units representing the targeted fields of expertise, as well as with pro-/deputy vice-chancellors, vice-chancellors, and presidents of faculty associations. Following the surveys and interviews, we organized work-international higher education africa focus 6 While the African universities will ultimately determine whether our efforts have been successful, there are many signs that our collaboration is bearing fruit.