Recruitment And Retention Of Academic Staff In Private University Colleges In The Greater Accra Region Of Ghana

ABSTRACT

This is a report of an investigation into the recruitment and retention of academic staff in the private university colleges in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. Basically the study aimed at:(1) determining the sources from where academic staffs are recruited into the Private University Colleges, and (2) their background characteristics.(3), find out the reasons individuals have for deciding to enter academic employment in the PUCs;(4) determine the effectiveness of the process by which the academic staff is employed into the PUCs;(5) determine the effectiveness of the motivational factors used by the PUCs to encourage the staff to top performance;(6) identify factors that lead to the satisfaction and retention of the academic staff in the PUCs. The research was conducted using a survey method of the descriptive type. It also utilized some elements of cross-sectional survey design based on the critical analytical method. A multi-stage sampling design was used to select the sample study drawn from two clusters of private university colleges formed from the thirty four (34) private university colleges in the Greater Accra Region. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used for data collection. These were personal interviews (unstructured), and questionnaire, which was the principal instrument used with a reliability value of R= 0.95. The six (6) objectives and six (6) research questions used and all hypotheses were tested using the χ2 (chi-square), and the Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient (R) at 0.05 two-tailed significant level. The findings of the study revealed that(1) The private university colleges recruit their academics from two main sources: (i) Graduate students who wish to pursue a career in academia, and (ii) employees in other organizations (public services, civil service, industry and public universities) who move from senior positions to look for academic employment in the PUCs as career changers.(2)The majority of the academic staff in the PUCs are the career changers, mostly middle-aged, majority being male, Ghanaian mostly, with majority of them holding the Master’s degree rather than the doctorate degree.(3)While the graduate students enter the PUCs with intention to pursue an academic career and have opportunity to lecture at the highest educational level, the career changers usually have motive to improve their personal circumstances.(4)The process used by the PUCs to recruit their academics is largely effective, being the HR process of attracting candidates through adverts, conducting selection interviews to obtain candidates who ‘fit’ the positions they require, organize induction courses for the recruits and deploying them to appropriate sections and departments. (5) the motivation satisfiers or factors used by the PUCs to motivate the academics are able to motivate the academics but to different degrees only, and that (6)The retention of the academic staff depends on their overall satisfaction with the academic job itself, and with other aspects of the academic job ( mostly the academics’ satisfaction with the longer-term prospects of their job (promotion prospects and job security) and also with non-pecuniary aspects of their job (e.g. their relationship with authorities, their total earnings, their involvement in decision making and their ability to use own initiative).As an outcome of this research project, recommendations were made to administrators of the private university colleges in Ghana for improvement in their efforts at recruiting and retaining highly qualified and competent academic staff in order to encourage high academic performance, and to guarantee the colleges’ capability of turning out quality products that will be able to play a key role in the economic, scientific, social and human development of the country.