A Markov Chain Model Approach to Study Academic Promotions in Ghanaian Universities

Abstract

Promotions of academic staff in universities and analogous institutions remain crucial to the attainment of economic, environmental and societal objectives nationally and globally. Notwithstanding the benefits to institutions and individuals, little literature is available on outlay of promotions in universities in Ghana. This paper seeks to model promotions in Ghanaians universities as stochastic process to determine the underlining stochasticness under different conditions. Stochastic model with emphasis on the an absorbing Markov Chain, presented in its canonical form, was used to estimate the probability of lecturers attaining professorial status before retiring from service, and also the average length of time an academic staff stays in the universities. A simple random sample was used to select three Ghanaian universities (a public university, a private university and then a technical university) and data on promotions of academic was collected from these universities. The study found out that, whereas an academic staff spends an average of 21 years in a technical university, colleagues in the public university spends a lower average of about 13 years. Again, the study revealed that academic staffs in the public university have higher probability (26%) of attaining professorial status as compared to their colleagues in technical universities (25%). The estimated model indicated that a newly recruited academic staff have insignificant chance of promoted to a professorial rank in the private universities in Ghana.