An Input-output Model for Resource Allocation Amongst University Departments: the Case of the University of Nairobi

Abstract

The typical university today is a huge economic outfit with immense resources to be managed. The rational management of such resources calls for relatively rigorous and robust systems and structures. In this study, a model based on the Leontief input-output analysis is considered for the allocation of resources amongst the various Departments of a university. For this, the university is considered as an economy with the various academic Departments considered as the sectors of the economy. The Leontief model is then applied to the various Departments in an input-output structure yielding thereby a mechanical system that can be used to predict the effect of a change in a given Department on the other Departments within the university. The elements of the transactions matrix are given In terms of the financial outlay concerning the respective Department in terms of the financial worth of the teaching that the Department gives to itself, that or teaching given to the Department by other Departments in the form of service teaching and that which the Department itself also gives to other Departments as service teaching. In order to establish the financial outlay, costs are worked out for every course that the Department is involved with, whether concerning internal teaching to itself, service teaching to itself, or service teaching from itself. As a corollary to this, the total staffing, unit cost to a student per programme and the equivalent full time students are determined for each programme of study. The model is implemented with data obtained from a real case situation with the University of Nairobi adopted as the case study. A total of seventy-eight academic Departments have been considered in the study, thereby resulting in a 78-by-78 Leontief matrix to be evaluated. The study demonstrates fully the power or the Lconticf input-output analysis in predicting the effect of changes in the final demand on a department on the total outputs expected from the other Departments within the entire economy of the university. It is shown that the effect of the changes in a given Department are not just restricted to those departments that have direct interaction with the respective Department but also with other Departments that Illay only be indirectly connected with the Department in question.