BENCHHMARKING AS A STRETEGIC APPROACH TO GOOD MANAGEMENT PRACTICE AMONG EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS IN NIGERIA: THE CASE OF UNIVERSITY MANAGEMENT

The purposes of this paper was to propose and discuss benchmarking as managerial tool to develop the capacity of higher education institutions in Nigeria as to evaluate themselves at all levels and functions .There has also been considered as an effort to develop and apply performance indicators as aid to good management in the institutions. The paper concluded that higher education institutions should begin to benchmark their activities against those institutions that considered best-in- class in their operations in order to drive continuous quality improvement in efficiency in the face of dramatic fall in public funding per student. The paper established some of the benefits institutions can derive from benchmarking themselves, such as sharing of knowledge, improvement of institutional quality, exposition of people to new ideas, broadening of the institutions’ operating perspectives, creating of a culture of being open to new ideas, serving as a catalyst for learning etc. The paper established benchmarking to be a potential vehicle to evolve, perhaps leading to a more innovative Nigeria University management in future. The position taken in this paper is that benchmarking should be undertaken by higher education in the country so as to learn from each other’s best practices.