Abstract:
This study is on students’ participation in administrative decision-making in the governance of universities in South-South Nigeria. The study became necessary because of the researcher’s experiences of student crisis in South – South Nigeria universities. Five purposes of study and five research questions guided the study. Four hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The research design adopted was descriptive survey research design. The population for the study was 145,870 students with a sample of 1200 final year students. The data collection instrument was questionnaire made up of forty (40) items. The internal consistency of the instrument was established with the use of Cronbach alpha method. The reliability co-efficient of 0.82 was obtained for cluster one, 0.76 for cluster two 0.68 for three, 0.91 for four and 0.88 for cluster five. These scores or values were computed and internal reliability coefficient of 0.92 was obtained and considered reliable enough for the study. Data collected was analyzed using mean and standard deviation. The result revealed that: Students of federal and state universities agreed that the university disciplinary committees are composed of students and members of staff and students are free to contribute to matters relating to students discipline in the committee. Student of federal and state universities disagreed that the rules and regulations operating in the university for students are made by the students and the university authority. Students of federal universities agreed that university authority seeks students’ opinions when rules and regulations are formulated for students, Students of both federal and state universities also disagreed that students and the university authority always decide hostel accommodation fees, Students of federal and state universities disagreed that; they take part in deciding internally generated revenue like: development fee, laboratory fee, and their views are not usually sought nor considered before increases in registration fees are made. Students of both federal and state universities held the opinion that students’ leaders are elected by students and the list forwarded to the university authority for approval among others. Based on the findings, conclusions were drawn and the educational implications discussed. Among the recommendations made were that: Students should be represented in university disciplinary committees of their institutions, university authorities should involve students in the formulation of rules and regulations on students union government in both state and federal universities. Students should participate in decision making on accommodation related issues. Students should be involved in decision making on internally generated revenue and finally students should take part in the selection of their leaders.
