Discovering Possible Reasons for Delayed Graduation Time and Dropout Syndrome among Undergraduate Students in Northeast Nigeria: A Qualitative Inquiry

Is-haq Abdulsalam, Hussain Kehinde Garba, Adamu Babaji Tanko, Ayuba Usman

Abstract


Improving retention and graduation rates are now a public concern; considering the devastating implications on victims, and shrewdly on tertiary institutions, explaining the global worry and anxiety for improvement as the aberrations can erode higher education abrasively. Given that no previous literature exists on delayed time to graduation and dropout syndrome in Northeast Nigeria, it is necessary to investigate this conundrum in the light of qualitative research. In line with this, the study employed Focus Group Discussions (FGD) with 111 students, and Face-to-face interviews with 43 academic and 26 non-academic staff as respondents. Data analysis involved organising, and analysing transcripts at First and Second cycle (focused) coding levels, highlighting seemingly emerging codes, cutting the codes discretely, and arranging the codes on flipcharts for group analysis sessions. Overall, six themes emerged from respondents’ datasets; though narrowed to four quadrants, vis-à-vis, non-academic constraints—student individual level factors (quadrant one); and institutional constraints—symbolising non-individual constrictions (quadrant two); labour market factors (quadrant three); and last but not the least is Vision for tomorrow—future direction to solving the problem (quadrant four). The emergent themes and their categories have been presented somewhere in this study with their corresponding participant identifiers. The study recommends the need for universities to engage professional counselling practitioners to address nascent personal, social and education-inclined cases, institutions to ensure flexibility of course contents and adhere to core values and institutional norms. The study also recommends the need for summer semester examinations for students re-sitting previously failed examinations to aid time to degree completion and to assist financially unfit and vulnerable enrollees as well as keeping to best global practices.


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