An analysis of academic staff turnover in private universities in Uganda

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the factors underlying academic staff turnover, find out its implications and the researcher provided way forward to prevent academic staff turnover in private universities in Uganda: A case study of All Saints University, Lango. The failure of the University to retain academic staff has been largely attributed to the University’s failure to meet the basic demands of academic staff. The more the University failed to meet those basic demands, the more the academic staff turnover, hence deterioration in academic performance of the students at the University. It is against this background that the question of how do we solve it arises. The study used an exploratory design. The study objectives were to; 1) explore factors underlying academic staff turnover at All Saints University, Lango, 2) find out the implications of academic staff turnover on academic performance of students at All Saints University, Lango. The findings on objectives 1 and 2 are to enable the researcher provide way forward as part of his contributions to the field. It was carried out by administering interviews to purposively selected academic staff from Faculty of Education in the Departments of Full Time Studies (DFTS) and Department of Distance Studies (DDS). Academic staff turnover was discovered to have negative implications on the students’ academic performance. The study found out that academic staff were paid low salary hence academic staff turnover became inevitable. Poor working conditions was also discovered, lack of security of service, lack of promotion, lack of recognition, poor management style and presence of other established universities were all discovered. All the above were responsible for academic staff turnover at the University. It was therefore concluded that the University management should prioritize to increase academic staff salary, and look into academic staff welfare and remuneration. Through this academic staff turnover will be checked hence improved academic performance of students at the University.