CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Delta State has a large number of secondary schools to cater for the educational needs of eligible school age children. This situation becomes imperative because of the quest to get educated and be prepared for the challenges ahead. Since the creation of the state in the early 90’s, the number of secondary schools have continued to be on the increase, with this increase in the number and size of many secondary schools, the employment of more teachers, changes in school structure, and an enlarged curriculum, the problems of administering the schools would obviously be expected to become more complex. In the setting of most schools, infrastructural facilities were inadequate or even lacking, thus posing special administrative problems.
The expansion of secondary schools meant that teachers were recruited as principals. Some school administrators had less than adequate qualifications and experience since qualified and experience ones were not available or too expensive to be recruited.
Among other constrains found in Delta State’s secondary schools are lack of infrastructural facilities (such as water, inadequacy of classrooms, laboratories, recreational centres and transportation). Inadequate transportation facilities have resulted in truancy and late attendance on the part of the pupils.
The lack of concerted community effort in the educational process, indifference on the part of the parents in their children’s education particularly at the primary level, over-crowed classrooms, shortage of infrastructural materials (textbooks, audio-visual equipment, film and slides), isolated school environment, and the fact that some homes may be too poor to provide reinforcement for the child have all added to the complexity of school administration.
This list does not include the variety of stresses and conflicts accompanying social and psychological conflicts resulting from ethnic and personality differences in the school setting. These limiting factors and constrains tend to make the administrative situation in the state’s secondary schools less than favourable because they place considerable limits on the degree to which school administrators can be effective.
The foregoing is a sketch of the context in which Principals in Delta State are expected to carry out the central task of administration which is the enhancement of teaching and learning. To enhance teaching and learning, the school administrator is required to perform three vital development of goals and policies, to establish and coordinate educational organizations concerned with planning and implementing appropriate programmes, and to procure and manage resources necessary to support the educational system and its planned programme.
Effectiveness in this situation will very much depend on the principals’ knowledge, expertise, and capability and the ability to improvise solutions to problems (Jiboyewa, 1999).
Researches in administrative effectiveness have classified school administrators as either effective or ineffective in carrying out their functions. For instance, Nwankwo noted that the extent to which there is mutuality between the principal’s control behaviour and the students’ acceptance of the behaviour would determine the harmony and low level of student conflict in the school. He also noted that some schools experience more conflicts than others and this attributed among other things to the principals’ effectiveness or ineffectiveness. Mfon also states in his study of the attributes of Delta State Principals to human right laws in the control of student conduct, that school control takes different forms in different schools and among different school heads.
Also writing on differential administrative effectiveness among secondary school administrators in Delta State, Onyenenue noted that discipline in school was the offspring of effective administration while indiscipline was caused by absence of commitment on the part of some principals.
These are instances of effectiveness and ineffectiveness in Delta State secondary schools and are also pointers to the fact that differences in performance exist among the state’s school administrators.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
There are apparently several complexities which limit the degree to which school principals in Delta State secondary schools can be effective with large and ever increasing student enrolment for instance, the principals have considerable responsibilities catering for the different inadequacies that come with increased school size. They are also faced with inadequate and sometimes non-availability of infrastructural facilities that should help smoothen the teaching/learning process. Increased enrolment has also meant the employment of less qualified and experienced teachers as principals to man the school system. Nwankwo and Eyike have observed that in the process of managing these constrains, some school principals are more effective than others. The present study is designed to find out if demographic and organizational variables such as age, sex, qualification, school size, school location, and years of experience interact to bring about differences in effectiveness between school administrators in the process of managing educational institutions. Specifically, the following questions were asked to direct the study: