Research
Governance and Leadership Roles as the Strategies for Effective Higher Education in Nigeria: An Examination
The paper set out to examine how Nigerian government initiated higher education policy reforms that intended to bring its university system more in line with international best practice and also to analyse how the reforms promote increased institutional autonomy, greater system differentiation, strengthened governance and mechanisms for quality assurance. The paper adopts an approach that is based on a qualitative analysis of concepts of leadership and higher education. The gap in knowledge is how Nigerian government seeks to create a viable environment with more flexible and responsive system of university teaching, learning and research that will contribute increasingly to national innovation development and economic growth. The finding revealed that the crucial function of higher education in the knowledge economy has been the object of various empirical demonstrations that succeeded in showing a strong correlation between higher education and GDP growth, through human capital development and technology diffusion. Therefore the paper finds out that a large number of factors that can influence and limit the higher education benefits and some important issues need to be addressed. In Nigeria a variety of international donors support higher education, emphasizing or neglecting some aspects depending on their nature, their sensitiveness, their ultimate scope. This paper gives particular attention to issues of governance/ management, Leadership, finance and accountability.
Effectiveness of Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System in Addressing Ghost Worker Syndrome in Nigerian Public Sector
The paper set out to examine the strategies adopted by Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) in addressing ghost worker syndrome in the Nigerian public sector. Furthermore, it critically looked at the effect of ghost worker on public service salary administration and also to analyse the challenges facing IPPIS in implementation of the policy in the Federal Inland Revenue Service in Nigeria. The paper utilised primary and secondary sources of data to elicit the opinions of public servants in the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS). The study population (450) consists of senior and junior workers of administrative, finance and audit departments comprise the population of the study. The three departments are directly involved in human resources and salary administration in three senatorial districts in Lagos State, Nigeria. Interviews will be conducted with the three Directors and three Head of Departments to provides information on the challenges facing IPPIS in uploading checkoff dues of the unions and cooperative, as well as detecting ghost workers on salary administration in FIRS .Secondary data were gather through the use of textbooks, academic journals, internet sources and IPPIS manuals. However, the finding revealed that the strategies adopted by IPPIS addresses ghost worker in the public sector in Nigeria. It also revealed that the introduction of IPPIS policy into the salary administration in Nigeria improved constant payment of employees. The study also revealed that there are still challenges facing IPPIS in uploading monthly salary of the employees. The paper concluded that with the introduction of the IPPIS scheme, if properly implemented and managed, it will go a long way in eradicating ghost workers in the Nigeria public service, thus the steering committee on IPPIS should urgently deal with supplier performance and project management issues that have constrained the full realisation of the benefits of the IPPIS scheme.
