Influence of Governing Councils on the management of public universities in North-Central, Nigeria.

Abstract

The study investigated the influence of Governing Councils on the management of public universities in North-Central, Nigeria. Three objectives with corresponding three research questions guided the study while three hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study focused on funding, provision of infrastructural facilities and provision of ICT facilities. The study adopted a survey research design. The population of the study comprised 13,513 staff and 834 members of the governing councils from the seven Federal and six State- Owned Universities in North Central Nigeria. The sample size for the study comprised 374 respondents who were selected using a multi-stage sampling procedure. The instrument for data collection was a self-structured questionnaire titled “Governing Councils and Management of Public University Questionnaire” (GCMPUQ) which was validated by experts. The reliability of the instrument was established using Cronbach Alpha method and a reliability coefficient of 0.77 was obtained. Data were collected and analyzed using means and standard deviations to answer the research questions while Chi-Square statistic was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Findings of the study revealed that, Governing Councils have positive influence on funding, provision of infrastructural facilities and ICT facilities. The study concluded that governing councils to a very high extent enhance the management of public universities in North Central, Nigeria. Based on the findings, it was recommended that, Government at Federal and State levels should increase funding of public universities especially those in North Central, Nigeria. Governing councils should make sure that facilities like student hostels, lecture halls, offices, libraries, roads, electricity are provided in order to achieve the objectives of establishing public universities in North Central, Nigeria, As 21^st century universities, governing councils should develop synergy with university management to provide state of the art ICT facilities to encourage e-learning in public universities.