Number of staff with PhDs is 6,122

There are only 710 professors in public and private universities, a new report has revealed.

Of these, 557 teach in public universities while 153 lecture in private institutions.

According to the Universities Statistics Report, there are 979 associate professors and 2,218 senior lecturers in both public and private universities.

The report by the Commission for University Education (CUE) reviewed the status of education in the country during the 2016/2017 period.

It further revealed that there are 6,122 Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) holders in the universities.

The universities have also hired 6,268 lecturers, 2,986 assistant lecturers and 4,844 graduate assistants, bringing the total number of academic staff in the country to 18,005.

The report shows that across all the ranks, there were more academic staff in public universities (13,258) than in private institutions (4,747).

There is a higher gender disparity in the ranks of professor, associate professor and senior lecturer in both public and private universities than the ranks of lecturer, assistant lecturer and graduate assistant.

This shows that as academic staff move up higher ranks, the gap between male and female academic staff widens.

For example, among the proportion of all academic staff with PhDs, 71 per cent were male. The scenario is replicated across all the other ranks with male representation standing at over 60 per cent.

When analysed by gender and programme cluster, business and administration, humanities and arts, and health and welfare have the highest proportion of academic staff at 16 per cent, 12 per cent and 11 per cent respectively.

The programmes with least number of staff are manufacturing, architecture, and security and conflict resolution whose proportion of staff to the total academic staff was one per cent and below.