Abstract
This study sought to examine principals’
administrative process strategies for the achievement of quality
assurance in secondary schools in Kogi State. The design of the study
was a descriptive survey. Five research questions and two null
hypotheses guided the study. The population of the study comprised 228
respondents. The sample of the study consisted of 228 principals.
Questionnaire was used as instrument for data collection. Mean and
standard deviation were used to answer the research questions, while
t-test statistics was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of
significance. The findings of the study indicate that the principals’
planning strategies for quality assurance in secondary schools include
preparation of school time table on time among others. There is no
significant difference between the mean ratings of male and female
principals on the principals’ planning strategies for the achievement of
quality assurance in secondary schools; the principals’ organizing
strategies for quality assurance in secondary schools comprise making
proper arrangements prior to any external examination among others.
While organizing programmes like debate and quiz competition during
special assembly at least once in a week among others is not the
principals’ organizing strategies for the achievement of quality
assurance in secondary schools; there is no significant difference
between the mean ratings of male and female principals on the
principals’ organizing strategies for the achievement of quality
assurance in secondary schools; the principals’ staff personnel
strategies for quality assurance in secondary schools comprise taking
regular attendance of staff members among others while delegation of
duties and responsibilities to staff and encouraging staff professional
growth by encouraging teachers to undergo on- the- job training like
seminars among others is not the principals’ staff personnel strategies
for the achievement of quality assurance in secondary schools; the
principals’ coordinating strategies for quality assurance in secondary
schools include ensuring that every teacher is working towards the
attainment of school goals among others; the principals’ budgeting
strategies for quality assurance in secondary schools include making
sure that various departmental needs are forwarded by heads of
department or subject coordinator for inclusion in the school budget
among others. The study concluded among others that proper use of the
documented planning, organizing, coordinating, staff personnel, and
budgeting strategies by school principals could promote quality
assurance in secondary school administration. From the findings and
implications of the study, it was recommended among others that state
government should appoint capable and qualified persons as principals in
order to implement the documented administrative strategies for quality
assurance in secondary school administration.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Education
could be seen as an instrument for achieving socio-economic and
technological growth and development of any nation. It is an instrument
par-excellence and the means of developing human intellect, technical
skills, character and effective citizenship for self-reliance and
effective national development (FRN, 2004). A simple way of appreciating
education is that it is a tool or a necessary weapon that is needed by
every human being in order to effectively navigate this complex world
(Aguba, 2009). Education in essence is the most effective instrument for
academic progress, social mobilization, political survival and
effective national development of a country, it constitutes the single
largest enterprise in Nigeria (Akpa, 2002). The educational policy of
any nation is to achieve education for all (E.F.A.) (Moest, 2008). The
priority is to ensure equitable access and improvement in the quality
and efficiency of all level of education.
The concern of the principal
of secondary school is to direct the activities of teachers, students
and other staff in the school towards the school objectives. The roles
to be performed by the school principal can be categorized into two,
namely:
- supervision of school programmes which include: curricula and extra
curricula activities (allocation of schedule of duty or subjects,
school time table, school organization, etc.)
- interpersonal relation which involves school discipline, evaluation
of teachers performance, community support and involvement, helping in
solving staff and student personal problems e.t.c.
The principal of a school is a planner,
director, controller, coordinator, organizer, adviser and a
problem-solver (Maduabuchi, 2002). He identifies and set goals and
objectives of the school, which of course, must be in line with the
national objectives, analyses tasks and share responsibilities to the
staff according to specialization and expertise (Ugochi, 2007). The
status of secondary school principal is not gender discriminating.
Therefore, a principal can either be a male or female. A good principal
should champion the course of quality assurance in his or her school to
ensure a better school administration.
The ultimate goal of education
administration at all levels is to develop an all inclusive and quality
education that is accessible and relevant for self reliance. This is
guided by the understanding that good education contributes
significantly to economic growth, improvement of employment prospects
and income generating opportunities for sustainable development. For
qualitative education to be achieved in a nation, the teacher (human
resources) financial and instructional facilities (material resources)
must be co-operatively organized. In other words, the teacher in
secondary school must be well trained and supervised (assisted), the
learners continuously evaluated and funds and facilities adequately
provided.
There is a number of
administrative processes that exist to assist the administrator in
carrying out his day-to-day activities. An administrator who ignores
these processes is likely to encounter problems in the task of school
administration. Hence, administration is seen as a collection of
processes dealing with the various ways in which human and material
resources are utilized to achieve set goals in an organization. These
processes include such elements as planning, decision making,
organizing, coordinating, motivating, directing, evaluating, staffing,
and budgeting. Enyi in Ogbonnaya (2013) stressed that administrative
process can therefore be regarded as the sum total of the various
processes of planning, organizing, stimulating, coordinating, staffing,
budgeting, communication and evaluating, which aid administrators in the
utilization of resources in the achievement of organizational goals.
Within the school system,
virtually all the various aspect of the school programmes and activities
should be planned. According to Oboegbulem (2011) planning is the
process of deciding in advance, the methods and procedures which an
individual, group or organization intends to follow in order to
accomplish its outlined objectives. The important thing in planning is
to decide, in advance, the objectives to be achieved and how to utilize
the available resources in achieving these objectives. In other words,
to plan is to decide in advance what is to be done and how to do it. The
scarcity of resources makes the need more necessary, since the little
available resources have to be evenly spread to reach every competing
segment.
No administrator can function
alone without the assistance of others. Thus, in other to achieve the
set educational objectives, the administrator must have a frame work or
structure for his school on which posts are created and assigned to
people. Enyi (1999) sees organizing in schools as an administrative
process of having a structure and assigning people to the posts for the
purpose of performing specific duties. It is sometimes seen as a process
on which an administrator identifies and groups the work to be done in
smaller units, and assigns people to the various units with relevant
materials and authority. Organizing in schools enables the principal to
assign duties to academic and non academic staff according to competence
and it tends to minimize conflict in schools, since each person knows
what to do. Organizing helps the principal to coordinate the various
organizational activities, since he is aware of the various assignments
given to individuals.
Principals, who are charged
with the responsibility of utilizing human and material resources in
schools, need to have the ability to coordinate these resources in order
to achieve the desired results. Nwankwo (1982), explained coordination
as a process whereby an orderly pattern of group effort is developed to
ensure unity of action in the pursuit of common goals. Thus, a
secondary school with various departments, units and individuals with
different functions need to be properly coordinated to ensure that the
set school objectives are achieved. Coordination may therefore be
defined as the process of directing and harmonizing resources and group
activities for achieving set educational goals without friction.
In the school situation, staff
personnel administration forms an important responsibility of the
school administration in achieving the goals of the school in particular
and education in general. Staffs in the secondary schools include not
only the teachers, but also non teaching staff, clerk, watchmen,
labourers, cooks, and laboratory attendants. Teaching and non-teaching
staff are important tools in the hands of the secondary school
principals in achieving educational objectives.
The functional scope of staff
personnel administration as stated in Enyi 1999, includes
responsibilities of the administrator in;
- Determining the personnel needs of the school, (tutorial and non-tutorial);
- Satisfying personnel needs;
- Maintaining and improving services of the staff.
In educational institution,
the budget is prepared by the bursary department or finance office as
the case may be. Ogbonnaya (2005) had defined budget as the financial
statement of the proposed expenditure and expected revenue of the
government, public corporations, or educational institution for a
particular period of time. The budget usually covers a period of one
year. It shows clearly the expected income and proposed expenditure of
government or an educational institution for the coming year. The
principal must be sure of what revenue is to be anticipated and from
what sources it is to be derived before preparing his budget for the
school. Budget controls the financial behavior of principals in a school
system and prevent waste or reckless spending of fund provided for
various educational services.
The administrative dealings of various
secondary schools in Kogi state seems to have been hindered by numerous
problems. These problems may include: poor supervision, conflict among
teachers, inadequate funding, inadequate facilities, lack of
principal-teacher relationship, and poor leadership styles of the
principal among others. Some school principals in Kogi State seem to
lack vision, there appears to be inadequate job analysis and work plan
with poor instructional supervision which culminated into poor
curriculum delivery in schools and consequently poor academic
performance by the students. As far as the position of a principal is
concerned, the issue of “gender” is very crucial because a principal
could either be a male (man) or female (female).
Gender refers to the socially
constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given
society considers appropriate for men and women. To put it another way:
"Male" and "female" are sex categories, while "masculine" and "feminine"
are gender categories (Ivan, 2008). Gender plays a very important role
when it comes to the position of a principal. In any secondary school, a
principal can either be male or female i.e man or woman. Some critics
are of the view that women (females) have a better charisma as far as
the job of principalship is concerned. Another set of critics refuted
their idea and came up with an assertion that men (male) have
principalship proficiency in them naturally and therefore should be
considered a better gender for this profession than women. Other critics
totally disagree with their conjecture, but opined that everyone is
capable of becoming a principal; both men and women (male and female)
provided they are qualified and have acquired a sound leadership and
administrative experience. For the administrative processes to be
effective in achieving quality assurance there is need to adopt some
administrative process strategies (Ivan, 2008).
Administrative process strategy is a
concerned with shaping an organization in the right part towards the
achievement of its goal. Some of the administrative process strategies
of the principals include planning strategy, organizing strategy, staff
personnel strategy, coordinating strategy and budgeting strategy. These
administrative strategies are pertinent in the achievement of quality
assurance in secondary schools.
Quality assurance is a process
of ensuring effective resource input, control, refining the processes
and raising the standard of output in order to meet the set goals.
Ayeni, (2012) opined that quality assurance in education is the
efficient management, monitoring, evaluation and reviews of the resource
inputs and transformation process (teaching and learning) to produce a
quality output (students) that meets set standards and expectations of
the society. Quality assurance in education aims at preventing quality
problems and ensures that the products of the system conform to the
expected standards. Thus, the quality of education is the degree of
excellence of the output (students) which can be achieved through
principals’ effective administrative strategy. Mckeown (2011) argues
that “quality assurance strategy is about shaping the future “and is the
human attempt to get to “desirable ends with available means”.
Quality assurance is an
organization guarantee that the product or service it offers meets the
accepted quality standards (Lopez, 2003). It is achieved by identifying
what "quality" means in context; specifying methods by which its
presence can be ensured; and specifying ways in which it can be measured
to ensure conformity. Quality assurance is a
component of quality management and it is focused on providing
confidence so that quality requirements will be fulfilled (Flanna,
2008). It can be said to be Processes and procedures for ensuring that
qualifications, assessment and programme delivery meet certain
standards. Quality assurance relates to the achievement of educational
program standards established by institutions, professional
organizations, government, and/or standard-setting bodies established by
government. Walklin (2002) defined quality assurance
as the avoidance of non-performance by pre-empting failure through
proper planning, execution, monitoring and evaluation. It is a way of
managing an organization so that every job, every process, is
implemented right at first time and always.
Quality assurance in the school system
implies the ability of the educational institutions to meet the
expectations of the users of manpower in relation to the quality of
skills required by their outputs. It can be said to be the abilities of
the schools to meet certain criteria relating to academic matters,
staff – student ratios, staff development, physical facilities, funding,
and adequate library facilities (Ajayi and Adegbesan, 2007). Quality
assurance in the school system refers to all the activities that are
conducted in order to achieve or maintain a certain acceptable quality
level. It is an avoidance of defects in the education process. Cole
(1996) opined that quality assurance in any educational institution
indicates that students’ learning is well supported with adequate
resources and that those actively involved both in school administration
and teaching have clear job descriptions and know their job
responsibilities. It involves a series of operational techniques and
activities which include all the actions taken in order for the quality
requirement to be met.
Quality assurance in education is a
totality of the combination of some indispensable variables such as
quality teachers, quality instructional materials and quality
infrastructures (classrooms, seats, tables, chalkboards, etc.). Others
include: favourable teacher/pupil ratio, favourable pupils/classroom
ratio, and quality instructional supervision. Quality assurance means
putting in place appropriate structures, legislations, supervision of
personnel and materials in order to ensure that set minimum standards
are attained, sustained and seen to have meaningful impact on the
society. There seems to be a sharp decline in the quality of education
system in most of the public schools in Kogi State. Indicators of such
declining quality and wastage in the education system may include: high
drop-out and failure rates, rampant examination malpractices, poor
reading and writing skills among students at all levels. There is
evidence of client reaction as many parents take their children to
private schools within and outside the state.
Adedoja (2010) explained that quality
assurance have increasingly and significantly become the strongest
parameters for determining the relevance and a functionality of
education, especially in developing countries where reform regimes in
the sector have become imperative for meeting the Education For All and
Millennium Development Goals targets. But, inspite of the importance of
quality in education, it continues to pose serious challenge to
education sector, which is strategic for national and regional
development. Quality assurance in education, according to Adedoja
(2010), refers to the modalities for evolving, monitoring and
re-appraising indices, benchmarks and good practices within an education
system. Ukeje (2003) explain that quality assurance in a school setting
is made possible through proper planning by the management which
involves all the staff in the functions of planning, execution,
monitoring and evaluation using set standards and objectives. There is
need to uphold quality assurance in secondary schools to ensure a
successful school administration.
Secondary education is crucial in both
personal and national development. Secondary school level is the bridge
between the primary and tertiary levels. Secondary education is the
education children receive after primary education and before the
tertiary stage within the range of 12 to 18 years (FRN, 2004). The broad
goal of secondary education is to prepare the individual for useful
living in the society and for higher education (FRN, 2004).
Specifically, the secondary school system is geared towards catering for
the differences in talents, opportunities and future roles, to provide
technical knowledge and vocational skills necessary for agricultural,
industrial, commercial and economic development (FRN, 2004). Secondary
school should be able to provide quality teaching and learning.
The importance of secondary
education cannot be over emphasized since it has both consumer and
producer status. This is because it consumes the product of primary
schools and produce candidates for tertiary education in the nation.
Realizing the need to improve the reducing secondary education quality
which had been partly attributed to ineffective principals’
administrative process strategies which ought to be repositioned through
improvement of administrative process strategies of principals.
Given this background, the aim
of the present study is to examine and identify principals’
administrative strategy for the achievement of quality assurance in
secondary schools in Kogi state.
Statement of the Problem
Ideally, secondary school administration
is expected to promote quality assurance in Education of the citizens
for national development. It is the expectation of the government,
parents and even students that quality education is received by students
in Nigeria secondary schools through the adoption of appropriate
administrative process/ strategies by the principals.
However, observations have shown that
there seems to be poor principals’ administrative process/strategies
which have led to poor quality assurance in secondary schools in Kogi
State. This can be seen in the areas of inadequate funding, inadequate
facilities, poor instructional supervision, conflict among teachers,
poor vision of the principals, poor principal teacher relationship and
poor administrative style of the principals among others. These
situations seem to have led to poor academic achievement among the
secondary school students, high drop-out rate, and high rate of
examination malpractice, poor reading and writing cultures among others.
The above situation should not be
allowed to continue, hence the problem of this study put in question
form is, ‘what are the principals administrative process/strategies for
the achievement of quality assurance in secondary schools in Kogi
State’?
Purpose of the Study
The main purpose of this study is to
examine principals’ administrative process strategies for the
achievement of quality assurance in secondary schools in Kogi State.
Specifically, the study seeks to:
- Determine principals’ planning strategies for the achievement of quality assurance in secondary schools in Kogi State.
- Ascertain principals’ organizing strategies for the achievement of quality assurance in secondary schools in Kogi State.
- Find out principals’ staff personnel strategies for the achievement of quality assurance in secondary schools in Kogi State.
- Identify principals’ coordinating strategies for the achievement of quality assurance in secondary schools in Kogi State.
- Determine principals’ budgeting strategies for the achievement of quality assurance in secondary schools in Kogi State.
Significance of the study
This study has both theoretical and
practical significance. The theoretical foundation of this study is
hinged on the Schwartz theory of planning. The Schwartz theory states
that every problems of mankind is surmountable provided a suitable
planning approach is adopted and implemented correctly. The Schwartz
asserts that in any condition whatsoever there must be a light at the
end of the tunnel. The theory also states that before any problem is
discovered in the world, the solution has already been in existence, it
is a matter of planning. Schwartz proclaimed that good planning can
achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty. The concepts
of this theory can be a guide and also boost the confidence of secondary
school principals in their bid to map out some administrative process
strategies to achieve quality assurance in their various schools.
The findings of this study will be
practically significant to school principals, teachers, parents,
students, Kogi state government, and future researchers.
The findings of this study
will acquaint school principals on the poor quality educational system
in Kogi state and also offer them credible strategies to restrain such
trend and improve the quality of learning in the state. The findings of
this study will unearth some administrative problems ravaging secondary
school administration in Kogi state and suggest some possible strategies
which can be adopted by school principals to abolish such problems.
Teachers will benefit
immensely from the findings of this study. This study will unveil some
of the teachers’ problems which lead to poor teaching and learning in
various secondary schools in Kogi state. As the school principals adopt
and implement some strategies suggested in this study in their bid to
solve these problems, teachers will be favored. They will be motivated
in other to exhibit high morale in their job as their salaries are
likely to be increased.
Parents will benefit from the
findings of this study. When adequate care is given to teachers, they
will be happy to teach their students with enthusiasm. Consequently,
students will receive quality education and also excel academically to
the glory of their parents. Their parents will not only be glad and
proud of their children, but they will also be elated that the money
they are investing in their children’s’ education is not in vain. The
findings of this study will benefit students colossally. It will help
them experience quality sound teaching from motivated and high morale
teachers, which will enable them attain academic excellence.
The findings of this study
will be very beneficial to Kogi state government. It will uncover the
academic and administrative problems which is the root of low quality
educational and administrative system that has been obliterating various
secondary schools in Kogi state in the recent time. This study will
serve as an eye-opener to the state government and also give her an
insight on how to tackle these problems. Having eliminated these
problems, the educational system in the state will revive in all
ramifications. Mass exodus of teachers (brain drain) from the state will
reduce drastically. Kogi state will be rated highly as one the best
educationally developed state in Nigeria and in diaspora. The findings
of this study will be added to the existing literatures. Researchers in a
similar field of study will also find the results of this study very
interesting and useful.
Scope of the Study
This study is delimited to all the
government owned secondary schools in Kogi state. There are 228 public
secondary schools in Kogi State. The content scope focused on
principals’ administrative process strategies for the achievement of
quality assurance in secondary schools in Kogi State. These include:
principals’ planning strategies, principals’ organizing strategies,
principals’ staff personnel strategies, the principals’ coordinating
strategies, and the principals’ budgeting strategies for the achievement
of quality assurance in secondary schools in Kogi State.
Research Questions
The following research questions will guide the study.
- What are the principals’ planning strategies for the achievement of quality assurance in secondary schools in Kogi State?
- What are the principals’ organizing strategies for the achievement of quality assurance in secondary schools in Kogi State?
- What are the principals’ staff personnel strategies for the achievement of quality assurance in secondary schools in Kogi State?
- What are the principals’ coordinating strategies for the achievement of quality assurance in secondary schools in Kogi State?
- What are the principals’ budgeting strategies for the achievement of quality assurance in secondary schools in Kogi State?
Hypotheses
The following null hypotheses formulated will guide the study, and will be tested at 0.05 level of significance.
H01: There is no
significant difference between the mean ratings of male and female
principals on principals’ planning strategies for achievement of quality
assurance in secondary school in kogi State.
H02: There is no
significant difference between the mean ratings of male and female
principals on principals’ organizing strategies for achievement of
quality assurance in secondary school in kogi State.