IOSR Journal of Business and Management (IOSR-JBM) e-ISSN: 2278-487X, p-ISSN: 2319-7668. Volume 22, Issue 4. Ser. I (April. 2020), PP 57-65 www.iosrjournals.org DOI: 10.9790/487X-2204015765 www.iosrjournals.org 57 | Page University Administration and the Challenges of Brain Drain in Nigeria Don M. Baridam 1 and Letam Don-Baridam 2 1 Don M. Baridam is the 6 th Vice Chancellor University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria and a Professor of Organizational Behaviour. 2 Dr Letam Don-Baridam is a lecturer in the Department of Management, Faculty of Management Sciences, Rivers State University, Port Harcourt, Nigeria. She has a PhD in Human Resources Management. Abstract: This paper discusses university administration and the challenge of brain drain in Nigeria. The paper argues that military invasion of the country’s policy-making institutions, lack of adequate facilities/poor salary, lack of academic freedom, poor leadership, discrimination in appointment, promotion and insecurity are the some of the causes of brain drain in Nigeria. The paper further argues that the personality traits of the individual determine the extent to which the push or pull factors will influence his or her decision to migrate to better clime.The paper identifies inability to produce ground breaking research that will raise the profile of the university, loss of skilled workers, falling standard of education, loss of confidence in the quality of academic program, loss of innovative ideas and inability to produce employable graduates are the challenges of brain drain in university administration. The paper among others, recommends the creation of an enabling environment, infusion of huge capital to internationalize the Nigerian tertiary institutions at home in order to stem brain drain. Key Words: University Administration, Brain Drain, Challenges --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date of Submission: 20-03-2020 Date of Acceptance: 06-04-2020 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. Conceptualising Brain Drain Universities, according to Balderston (1995), are remarkable and resilient organisations with unlimited capacity to positively impact the developmental process in any nation. He further submits that financial stringency and conflicting demands on their resources have produced serious stressors within modern universities, necessitating their self-justification in a largely utilitarian age when knowledge is summarily capitalized for profit to researchers and society. With growing advocacy for Entrepreneurial Universities, it would be safe to assume that the era of generating and disseminating knowledge for the sake of knowledge appears to have ended abruptly. In Nigeria, there is serious concern about the direction of the country‟s higher educational system, largely on account of dysfunctional scenarios that have catalysed a phenomenon known as brain drain. There is a chorus of agreement among stakeholders that the golden era of Nigeria‟s educational system is now in the past and they have very unimpeachable reasons to justify their pessimistic assessment of such a critical sector to the country‟s national development and preservation of institutional memory. The stakeholders nostalgically recall the late 1950s and early 1960s when the University of Ibadan, for instance majestically sat in 4 th position on the league ranking of universities in Commonwealth countries! Then, students who obtained the First-ClassHonoursdegree from Nigerian universities travelled to England and other metropolitan European cities to enrol into terminal degree programmes without any form of scepticism or academic discrimination. These home-bred super-brains beat their European counterparts right in front of their parents and bemused teachers. They walked gallantly to the rostrum, carted away available prizes and were garlanded in a blaze of academic glory for their exploits. Very few Nigerian students agreed to travel to North America or Canada, which they erroneously believed to offer less academic completion than was available in Europe—especially the United Kingdom. Those who were not privileged to travel abroad to further their education, simply internationalized their degrees right here at home and creditably stood the competition anywhere in the world. Then, the Nigerian tertiary educational system suffered no inferiority complex on the highly competitive global stage. Articles and books by Nigerian university students and their teachers matched the best global benchmarks without let or hindrance. That was the golden era of Nigeria‟s educational system—especially as it applied to university education. At that time, “the system prepared you very well and also prepared a place for you in the workplace and a status for you in society” (Anusiem, 2017). Today, „increasing bureaucratisation‟ of tertiary education and