Correlation between Performance and Quality of Academic Staff in National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN)

The paper aims at examining the inability of NOUN to graduate degree students despite 7 years of operation. It examined this by viewing the quality, quantity, experience and continuous development of the academic staff. A 25% sample of the academic staff was taken across the schools and using the Spearman-Rho correlation, it is established that the acute shortage of academic staff hampers performance. It is also established that only 40% of the staff have doctoral degrees and 74% are in the lower academic ranks with few older academicians to mentor them. Finally, many of the staff has little or no experience in tertiary teaching hence they are bound to make blunders. The paper ends by suggesting the following:

1. Employment of academic staff should be based on a minimum of two years experience in at least a conventional university.
2. New entrants into Open and Distance Learning (ODL) should be tutored for a minimum of six months.
3. Constant training with focus on full time staff should be encouraged.
4. Academic staff should be made to operate strictly within their specialization.

Academic staff should be encouraged to have a Ph. D.