CALABAR – A technical committee constituted by Governor Bassey Otu to review the working environment at the University of Cross River State (UNICROSS) has been tasked with addressing a staffing imbalance that leaves the institution falling short of the National Universities Commission’s recommended academic‑to‑non‑academic staff ratio.
Among its eight terms of reference, the 7‑member committee is specifically mandated to “assess the university’s staffing structure and recommend measures to achieve the National Universities Commission (NUC) academic‑to‑non‑academic staff ratio of 3:1”.
The NUC standard stipulates that a university’s staff system should maintain a 70/30 ratio, with 70 per cent academic staff and 30 per cent non‑academic staff. The commission’s guidelines require that the adequacy of permanent staff on a programme be a major consideration in institutional evaluation.
The directive suggests that UNICROSS may currently have a staffing structure that deviates from this benchmark. Similar challenges have been documented at other Nigerian universities. A visitation panel to Taraba State University, for instance, found that the institution had 749 academic staff and 1,819 non‑academic staff – a ratio of approximately 70 per cent non‑academic to 30 per cent academic, effectively the inverse of the NUC standard. The panel noted that the university’s staffing system did not comply with NUC requirements.
The UNICROSS committee, chaired by Bishop Prof. U.U. Effiong, with Dr. (Mrs.) Glory Tony Effiong serving as Secretary, has been given two weeks to submit a comprehensive report with recommendations.
Beyond staffing structure, the committee is also tasked with engaging university authorities and unions to resolve pending labour issues, reviewing the relationship between the Consolidated Academic Tools Allowance (CATA) and Earned Academic Allowance (EAA), and exploring alternative funding sources to support the university’s financial obligations.
The committee’s work comes amid broader concerns about staffing in Nigeria’s university system. The NUC has previously reported that Nigerian universities have approximately 100,000 academic staff serving over 2.1 million students, with 170,000 non‑academic staff. Studies have examined the application of the 1:3 ratio in employment of academic and non‑academic staff, noting that federal and state universities often operate with bureaucratic imbalances while private universities sometimes lack adequate non‑teaching staff.
The UNICROSS committee’s recommendations on staffing structure, if implemented, could have significant implications for the university’s operational efficiency, accreditation standing, and ability to meet the NUC’s staffing standards.
