Assessing The Impact Of Alumni Associations on The Management Efficiency of Public Universities in South-Eastern Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated the Impact of the Alumni Association on Staff Professional Development in Public Universities in South-Eastern Nigeria. One research question guided the study. The study tested one hypothesis at the 0.05 level of significance. The study employed an ex post facto research design. The area of study was South-Eastern Nigeria. The study population comprised  29,181 administrative and academic staff from 11 public universities in South-Eastern Nigeria. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select a sample of 875 administrative staff and academic staff from 11 public universities in South-Eastern Nigeria. In the first stage, purposive sampling was used to select 5 States in South-Eastern Nigeria. Secondly, the proportionate stratified random sampling technique was used to select the universities. The stratification was based on Federal and State universities, as well as academic and administrative staff. At the third stage, simple random sampling was used to select the individual respondents from the predetermined population of academic and administrative staff of the five Federal and six State universities. The instrument for data collection was a questionnaire titled “Impact of Alumni and University Management Questionnaire (IAUMQ)”. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics, including mean scores and Standard Deviation, to answer the research questions. The chi-square (X2) test was used to test the hypotheses at the 0.05 level of significance. The study found that the Alumni Association has a significant impact on staff professional development in public universities. The study concluded that the Alumni Association has a considerable positive impact on the management of public universities in South-Eastern Nigeria. The study recommended that, since the provision of quality education cannot rest solely on the government, the management of public universities should sustain existing efforts and explore other innovative areas of collaboration with the Alumni Association to achieve university goals.