Staff Retention in African Universities and Links with Diaspora

Over the last few decades African institutions of higher education have lostcapacity to retain staff in teaching and technical services. This is due to globalcompetition, uncompetitive wages and benefits and lack of integration of highereducation in the strategic development planning of many countries in the region.?In addition higher education funding has been fluctuating as it is not based onclear formulae, support for research and staff development is low and roomfor manoeuvre on the part of the institutions is limited due to control and overregulation.On the other hand the institutions of higher education themselvesare trying to develop new incentive schemes to enable them retain capacity buttheir decision making procedures on recruitment, training and promotion aretoo slow and uncompetitive. In addition some have been slow in noticing thechanges going on around them locally and globally. To be able to increase theircapacity to attract and retain staff, systemic changes at national and institutionallevel are necessary supported by changes in management styles and structuresof decision making. Working with global knowledge networks of the Diasporaand others may also help