AWARENESS AND ASSESSMENT OF GRANTS AMONG TEACHING STAFF OF IMO STATE UNIVERSITY, OWERRI

Abstract

Nigeria is currently undergoing recession which has affected all sectors andaspects of lives of Nigerians. The tertiary institutions ranging from the federal, state to privately owned universities, polytechnics and colleges of education are not immune. Hence, salaries are delayed or denied workers, infrastructural developments are scanty and inadequate and research, the bed-rock of tertiary education, is epileptic or completely cheapened and absent. The major hope for research activities in tertiary institutions hinges on grants. Grants whether at the international, federal, state or private domains are available but locating and accessing them are the real problems especially among the teaching staff whose research interest is at present shaky. This research work is aimed at evaluating the awareness and assessment of all forms of available grants among university teaching staff using Imo State University, Owerri as a case study. One hundred and eighty (180) teaching staff drawn from the existing eleven faculties of the university comprising teaching staff of varying cadre, ages and gender were employed for the study. They were chosen through convenient sampling. Grants’ Awareness and Assessment Scale was usedin getting data for the study. Simple percentage statistics was employed in analyzing the data. Results indicated that 64.5% of the participants were aware of existing grants but only 35.6% have had access to them. It was then recommended that the university should create more awareness for grants and establish better and easier ways of encouraging the teaching staff inaccessing them.