Challenges of Managing Higher Education in Nigeria

Abstract

The mandate of higher institutions is to develop human being educationally, mentally and morally, and to confer certificates of academic excellence to those of them who are found worthy in character and learning in order to enable them assume leadership roles in their immediate and extended society. This paper recognizes the fact that in spite of this mandate, tertiary institutions in Nigeria find it difficult to create the enabling environment for the actualization of their mission due to the myriads of problems militating against the effective management of the Nigerian tertiary institutions. These include inadequate public finance, poor academic infrastructure, brain drain syndrome, government regulation and control, inadequate staff/student accommodation, volatile and militant students’ unionism, secret cults, examination malpractices and sexual harassment. Therefore, it is recommended that government should address the issue of funding of higher institutions, review upward the pay package of academics, grant the university autonomy and make plan and projections for the nation’s manpower needs in a bid to integrate this into the programmes of higher institutions.