DIMENSIONS OF UNIVERSITY ACADEMIC STAFF PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL IN SELECTED PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES IN NIGERIA

Appraisal and performance management are now issues of grave concern in higher education owing to factors like increased numbers of students, increasing overall expenditures and inadequate government grants. A significant test currently facing Nigeria’s Higher Education involves the shortage of veteran intellectuals, arising from the brain drain and mass departure of academics to other countries offering more conducive working environments and better remuneration. This study scrutinizes the Performance Appraisal (PA) system of academic staff in Nigeria’s Public Universities and its influence on their drive and general performance. It also determines the perception of the university academics’ of the precision and reasonableness of the performance appraisal system. The sample consisted of three hundred and sixty (360) respondents across six (6) public universities in south western Nigeria. A self-designed questionnaire was employed for data collection. The study established that the appraisal system focuses principally on the research job element which is the one of the three major job elements given serious consideration in performance appraisal. Performance on the remaining two job elements of teaching and community service are consigned to the background. Though the respondents did not see their performance appraisal system as correct and fair enough since the entire job elements of their performance are not captured adequately, it was found to wield significant weight on their motivation and general performance. There was a significant relationship between performance standards and the job elements, PAs and compensation systems, PAs and the motivation of university academics. This paper advocates improved organization of the human resource functions of public sector universities to further inspire motivation and advance the performance of academic staff. While research and academic publications constitute fundamental job elements, other equally important job elements like teaching and community services must be given due consideration. The higher the number of criteria employed, the more superior the evaluation results.