ACADEMIC STAFF UNION OF UNIVERSITIES AND THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF TERTIARY STUDENTS: A CASE STUDY OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS IN UNIVERSITY OF BENIN.

ABSTRACT

This work centers on the effects of ASUU strikes on the performance of federal Universities in the South Southern States of Nigeria for the year 2020, which also served as the main objective of the study.

The population of this study covered undergraduate’s students in the departments of the faculty of management sciences of the University of Benin. Yamane’s formula was used to determine the sample size for the study, a sample size of 355 respondents was established. The 355 questionnaires were distributed through google forms and was received from undergraduate’s students. Economic and political factors are identified as being responsible for ASUU strike and they include low wages, poor conditions of service, inadequate funding, rising student population and declining institutional autonomy. The study revealed that incessant strike actions have led to the disruption of academic calendars and interfered with the quality of learning and so impacted negatively on the students’ performance in their various courses of study. Students are hurriedly graduated without adequate abilities to handle tasks as graduates. The study concludes that ASUU strikes have adversely impacted on the quality of graduates produced from the federal universities in the South Southern States and generally affected the international ratings in the global ranking of universities.

It is recommended that federal government should invest to improve infrastructure of Nigerian universities which will automatically improve the quality of graduates produced and make the universities visible globally and influence their international ratings.