Perceived Agencification and Public Sector Performance

Agencification involves delegating government functions to semi-autonomous agencies with greater managerial flexibility; it is common in New Public Management (NPM) reform, but evidence on whether it is associated with better public sector performance remains mixed, especially in developing-country education systems. Using Principal-Agent Theory and an ex post facto design, we surveyed 380 academics and administrative and management staff (95% response rate) at federal and state tertiary institutions in North Central Nigeria about their perceptions of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) from 2015 to 2024. Respondents rated TETFund's administrative autonomy, decision-making flexibility, reduced bureaucratic oversight and institutional capacity highly (all item means above 4.20 of 5), and rated most performance indicators highly too, notably teaching, learning and research support (M = 4.76) and timely project completion (M = 4.65), though infrastructure project quality was rated markedly lower (M = 3.12). An ordinal logistic regression linking four perceived agencification attributes to perceived performance was significant (model χ² = 87.45, df = 4, p < .001; Nagelkerke R² = 0.312; 68.4% correct classification). Perceived administrative autonomy (β = 0.682, OR = 1.978), reduced bureaucratic control (β = 0.573, OR = 1.774) and decision-making flexibility (β = 0.451, OR = 1.570) were positively associated with perceived performance; perceived political interference was negatively associated with it (β = −0.392, OR = 0.676). Because every respondent rated the same agency, these results describe associations among perceptions rather than a causal test of agencification against a non-agencified comparator.