International Implications of Conflict Management in Nigerian Universities

Abstract

Conflict, also known as challenges, issues, or crisis, is an inevitable situation which individual, ethnics, organizations or institutions, countries, regions and sub-regions are involved in, and at different levels. Conflict permeates every part of existence. Most of the times, issues which have the capacity to stimulate conflicts are ignored or trivialised, and all focus will now be on generated problems. Conflict management is a catalyst for creativity, innovation, change and productivity in any system. This conceptual paper aims at identifying some challenges facing educational institutions and explaining the management measures. Different levels of education presents itself as an immense accumulation of Institution. There are a number of challenges that have been prevalent in such institutions which have been given little or no attention. Issues like academic freedom, erosion of university autonomy, imbalance between demand and available resources, irrelevance of the curricula to the global needs due to advancement and growth in technology, reducing the scope of mentoring junior researchers by seasoned and senior researchers, constant strikes by both students and academic staff, brain drain syndrome, political interference, and discrimination between the tertiary institutions among others. Also, the study explains the international implications if conflicts are not well managed. Moreover, it stresses the need to manage conflict through a number of measures by introducing the conflict management model. Among others, recommendations were made to education technocrats on the formulation of policy related to conflict management.