The academic staff of higher education institution is a key resource to institution's success. Colleges and universities are fighting for high-caliber Academic staff in order to improve the quality of teaching and gaining excellent reputation. Many academic staff are specialists in their disciplines, have attained great academic heights and are hard to come by. Because their jobs have national and global relevance, they tend to be very mobile. Academic staff motivation and retention have always been the major challenges being faced by almost every academic university across the globe. Specifically, the study aimed at examining the factors affecting academic staff motivation and retention. The study used cross-sectional research design whereas data were gathered using questionnaires and interviews. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The study found that unmet academic staff expectations are leading factors followed by unsteady promotion practices, feedback system, and training and development. MUCE seems to have relatively higher motivation and retention than RUCU and UoI. It is imperative for universities to keep an eye on issues that may bring about academic staff turnover and be vigilant.
Academic staff is a key resource in higher education institutions (HEIs) and therefore has a major role in the achievement of the objectives of these institutions. Satisfied and well-motivated academic staff can build a national and international reputation for themselves and their institutions. Retention strategies strengthen the capacities of organizations to attract and retain their workforce. Three universities were purposely selected, namely University of Iringa (UoI), Ruaha Catholic University (RUCU) and Mkwawa University College of Education (MUCE), within Iringa municipality. Primary and secondary data were used for the study. The study findings revealed that there are strategies employed by all three universities such as provision of competitive remuneration, scholarship provision, research and consultancy opportunity, workload allowances, recruitment of retainable academic staff, scholarship provision, bounding of five years after training, gratuity payment, scholarship, extra duty/ overtime allowances, quarterly meeting with academic staff, bank loan guarantee, marking and invigilation allowances and soft loans (land). MUCE had additional strategies like land loan and quarterly meeting as feedback mechanism, while RUCU provided gratuity, UoI provided competitive remuneration and seminars/ trainings. However, there are no clear and defined academic staff motivation and retention strategies in the universities under the study.
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