Paper short abstract:

A systematic evaluation of the organizational culture of Nigerian institutions of higher learning reveals the hidden root causes of the co-existence of progressive educational policies with the culture of circumventing the policies.

Paper long abstract:

Two recommendations emerge from a review of models of organisational culture evaluation. One is to redefine leadership as the totality of the members of an organisation with the strength of character to originate and advocate certain values and ideas which other members adopt—consciously or unconsciously. The other is to resolve organisational culture into two basic dimensions: the explicit and the implicit dimensions. The explicit dimension consists of observable tendencies of the behaviour of members of an organisation. The implicit dimension is the set of ideologies that inform observable tendencies.

The paper adopts both recommendations. It thus includes in the class of Nigerian leadership not only recognized authority figures but every Nigerian with such originative strength of character. In the Nigerian institutions of higher learning, this includes ministers and commissioners of education as well as certain unsung personalities in various colleges, polytechnics and universities. It is to these people that the formulation and the cultural circumvention of educational policies can be attributed. Consequently, the organizational culture of honest rigorous study, ostensibly upheld through established strictures, is culturally circumvented through ingenious, systematized practices of cheating at examinations and advocation of sexual exploitation.

Employing evaluative models, such as Kirkpatrick's and the Denison models, the paper reviews these cultural tensions in the Nigeria institutions of higher learning. It identifies the types of leaders who originate them, and reviews the safeguarding practices of these leaders with a view to recognizing why sanitary educational policies are not always the bases of every organizational culture.

Keywords: leadership; organizational culture; safeguarding practices; cultural tension; educational policies