By Ayo Arowojolu
Nigerians have been told to perish the misconception that any University can ever exist without a significant proportion of non-teaching staff in its overall human capital resource base, a University Administrator, Dr Abdussobur Olayiwola Salaam has asserted.
To him, the widely-held insinuations that university staff who are not lecturers in the Ivory towers are extra baggages are due to ignorance, mischief and deliberate misinformation.
Dr Salaam, National Vice President, Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities(SSANU) spoke during an interview coming on the heels of debate on how to halt the decadence going on in the University system.
He also asserted that even in universities in United Kingdom and America, facts have emerged that there are higher population of non-teaching staff cadre than their lecturing counterparts.
According to him, the professional services rendered by non-teaching personnel across board in any University system are not limited to clerical and record keeping functions but cover a while gamut of job functions like medical, finance, administration, transportation, engineering, environmental, security, media and image management.
Dr Salaam said: “There are many misconceptions about the non teaching staff which are not in the public domain due to ignorance, mischief and deliberate misinformation particularly when they want to run a narrative that non-teaching personnel can be done away with in the University system.
“This issue of overbloating is a serious misconception. What is the total Personnel overhead costs for non teaching staff compared to academic staff?
“The total overhead costs of salaries for non teaching staff is not up to 50% of what is paid to academic staff. In most universities, academic staff get between 55% and 70% of the salary overhead costs.
“The reality is the cost of maintaining an average non-teaching staff on the University payroll is only one-fifth of what it takes to maintain an average academic staff.
“I did a comprehensive research on the issue in 2014 and noted that across Universities in the UK between 2004 and 2012, there was a consistent population of between 45% and 48% academic staff in Universities in UK and non-teaching staff accounting for between 52% and 55%.
“I also did research on ivy league Universities in the US, such as Stanford, Cambridge, John Hopkins, University of Michigan, University of California, etc and realised a higher population of non-teaching staff compared to academic staff.
“This is because of the several professional services which thehyhh non-teaching staff render across board.
“An analysis of three first generation Universities – ABU, UNN and UI 2010/2011 and 2011/2012 sessions showed between 54% and 62% budgetary personnel allocation for academic staff compared to 46%=to 38% budgetary allocation to non-teaching staff.
“This is despite the fact that the population numbers of non-teaching staff were significantly higher. ABU had 73% of its staff being non-teaching staff but the financial implication of that huge population was only 48%. The documents are there so people should not do mischief.”
