Abstract:
The major purpose of this study was to find out the human resource management skill improvement needs of administrators in Colleges of Education in Abia State, Nigeria. Specifically, it determined skills needed for improvement by administrators for staff selection, staff development, staff motivation and staff maintenance in Colleges of Education in Abia State. Four research questions and four null hypotheses guided the study. Descriptive survey research design was adopted. The area of the study was Abia State. The population for the study consisted of 300 respondents. These include 162 male administrators and 138 female administrators in the six Colleges of Education in the area of the study. There was no sampling because of the manageable size of the population. The entire population of 300 was therefore studied. The instrument for data collection is a 40-item structured questionnaire titled: “Human Resource Management Skills questionnaire (HRMSQ)” The instrument was subjected to face validation by three experts. To obtain the reliability of the instrument, 20 copies of the questionnaire were trial tested on 20 similar respondents from Imo State. The data collected from the trial testing were analysed using Cronbach Alpha reliability method in which a reliability coefficient of 0.86 was obtained for the entire instrument. The data collected were analyzed using mean for answering the research questions while t-test statistics was used for testing the hypotheses at p≤0.05 level of significance. Findings of the study included: Administrators needed improvement in staff selection skills, staff development skills, staff motivational skills and staff maintenance skills in colleges of education in Abia State. There was no significant difference between the mean ratings of male and female administrators on their staff selection skills, staff development skills, staff motivational skills and staff maintenance skills improvement needs in colleges of education in Abia State. Based on these findings, the following recommendations among others were made that: Government and school authorities should organize regular seminars, workshops and conferences for administrators as this will ensure improved administrative skills and competence, Government and school authorities should devise means of motivating and satisfying administrators so as to help them build interest and confidence in their profession. This will ensure high level of job satisfaction among the administrators in colleges of education, and by extension, increase administrative performance. Human resource administrators in colleges of education should aspire to provide inspiring and transparent leadership, reconcile employee differences, accommodate the different cultures and interest as well as reduce areas of conflict among workers in colleges of education for a productive end.
