Challenges of Public Secondary Schools Management in the Creeksof the Niger Delta, Nigeria

Abstract

The thrust of this study was to examine the challenges of public secondary schools management in the creeks of Niger Delta, Nigeria. The study adopted the descriptive survey design. The population of the study consist of 277 public secondary school with 44,131 respondents. This comprises of 277 principals, 8,675 teachers, 34,625 SS3 students, (who were writing the SSCE examination as at when data for this study were collected), 277 traditional rulers and 277 chairmen of CDC in communities selected from 277 Public Secondary Schools in the Creeks of the Niger Delta. The sample size of the study is 164 public secondary school with 691 respondents, this comprises of 164 principals, 382 teachers, 121 students, 12 traditional rulers, and 12 CDC chairmen from the sampled communities in the creeks of Niger Delta. The sample size was determined using the Taro Yemen’s formula while a proportionate stratified random sampling techniques was used to determine the sizes of the students, traditional rulers and the chairmen of Community Development Committees. Three instruments namely:- Challenges of Secondary School Management Questionnaire (CSSMQ), Interview Schedule and Focus Group Discussion Guide were used for data collection. The instruments for data collection were trial tested, using 28 public secondary schools in Akwa-Ibom State, data was analyzed using the Cronbach Alpha. These instruments were face validated by three experts: two in educational administration and planning and one from measurement and evaluation department, from the university of Nigeria, Nsukka. The overall internal consistency reliability co-efficient index of the instrument obtained using cronbach alpha method were 0.91 for challenges of secondary school management questionnaire, the data collected were presented using means andstandard deviation, while the hypotheses were tested using t-test at 0.05 level of significance.It was observed that public secondary school education takes place in the creeks of Niger Delta, however, the physical condition is deplorable and grossly inadequate for quality education to strive, as many still lack social infrastructures such as roads, water, health services, libraries and laboratories, these are compounded by the restive climate. It was found that some instructional supervision management challenges of public secondary schools in the creeks are: supervisors do not take time to carry out their instrumental roles; difficult terrain, and non-availability of supervisory materials. The student-personnel management challenges include; poor record keeping for students, lack of orientation programmes are; inadequate funding mismanagement of available funds, and insufficient financial support. The school management challenges are: management style of school heads, poor working relationship between school and community, and poor attitude of public support on schools: The staff-personnel management challenges are: poor remuneration of teachers, lack of staff development programmes and poor motivation of teachers. The school-plant management challenges are: poor maintenance culture of school administration, destructive attitude of students and teachers, and poor public orientation toward use of school-plants. The consequences of management challenges of public secondary schools were, reduced access to education, reduced demand and supply for education, poor standard of teaching, school dropout, truancy among staff and students, threat to life of teachers and students and principals inability to enforce discipline. While the strategies for reducing management challenges were identified as adequate funding, access to quality education, special training for school administrators, and value-re-orientation for students etc, provision of peace and security, need for investment in education and provision of essential services. It was also found that there was no significant difference in the mean rating of principals and teachers in the variables identified as management challenges. On account of these findings, it was recommended that, government should provide a secured environment in schools in the Niger Delta with a view to providing access to quality education.