QUALITY ASSURANCE VARIABLES AND MANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES IN NORTH CENTRAL, NIGERIA

This study investigated the influence of quality assurance variables on management of public universities in North Central Zone of Nigeria. Six research questions guided the study and six hypotheses were formulated and tested. Analytical descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population comprised 13,784 staff (6,203 academic and 7,629 senior administrative staff) from six state and seven federal universities. A sample of 389 respondents was drawn from nine universities using multi stage sampling procedure. Quality Assurance and Management Questionnaire (QAMQ) with reliability coefficient of 0.89 and Interview Schedule were used for data collection. Data were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions, frequency tables and charts were used to analyze the responses of the interviewees while Chi-Square test of goodness of fit was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings showed that: stable academic calendar, funding, staffing, provision of infrastructural facilities, access to university and students’ assessment significantly influence the management of public universities. It was recommended among others that: managers should put in place measures like effective personnel management to prevent distortion of academic calendar from within the system and that university management should insist on employing academic staff on merit basis by adhering strictly to laid down rules for employment. It was also suggested among others that the study could be replicated in other geo-political zones of Nigeria