Institutional Strategies for Managing the Issue of Intellectual Flight for Sustainable University Education in South-South, Nigeria

The study investigated institutional strategies for managing the issue of intellectual flight for sustainable university education in South-South, Nigeria. Three research questions were answered and three hypotheses tested in the study. Survey design of the descriptive type was adopted for the study. The population of the study was 10,897 staff out of which 386 respondents were selected using multistage sampling technique. The instrument used for data gathering was a 15 item questionnaire tagged “Intellectual Flight and Sustainable University Education Questionnaire” (IFSUEQ) and it was face and content validated by two experts in Measurement and Evaluation at University of Port Harcourt. The reliability was 0.91 and this was estimated using Cronbach alpha statistics. The research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation while the hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance using z-test. The result of the study showed that inadequate working tools, poor remuneration and insecurity were the main factors leading to intellectual flight and this is affecting programmes implementation in the Universities and contributed to reduced number of staff. The major strategy for bridging this gap was the engagement of ad hoc staff. The teaching and non-teaching staff did not differ in their opinion on this perspective. The study recommended the need for the government to lift the existing embargo on employment in Universities and applicants with the best competence must urgently be recruited to close the gap that have been left by the best brains that left the country while also complementing available staff.