CHAPTER ONE
1.1 Background of the Study
The term ‘management’ has been defined in various ways. Musaazi, (1982) defined it as a social process concerned with identifying, maintaining, motivating, con-trolling and unifying formally and informally organized human and material resources within a social system. In such a social process, there is always a structural hierarchy comprising the subordinates and super ordinates. Sherlekar (1984) described it as a guideline, leadership and the control of the efforts of a group of people towards some common objectives. Management has also been seen as a hierarchy of people and their functions within an organization (Akintayo and Adeola, 2001). It is concerned with the efficient and effective performance of a task in achieving the goals and objectives of an organization. Supporting these points, Nwadiani (1999) described management as a variety of sequential and related activities that are designed and carried out in order to effectively and efficiently achieve the goals of teaching and learning in relation to the needs of the society. This achievement could be made through effective planning, organizing, coordinating, supervising, directing, motivating, controlling, budgeting and evaluating programmes as well as undertaking of risks and handling of uncertainty (Fabunmi, 2000; Ajayi & Ayodele, 2002). Against this background, educational management is the process of providing leadership within an educational system in the way of coordinating activities and making decisions that would lead to the attainment of the school’s objectives, which are effective teaching and learning. In order to accomplice this task, the school manager must co-ordinate the activities of the divergent groups in order to achieve the objectives. He needs to be well equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to perform his duties. Thus, management involves a manager making use of resources both human and material to achieve the goals of the organization while effective management involves ensuring efficiency and effective-ness in the use of the available human and physical resources together with the ability to combat any constraints that might hamper the achievement of the objectives. Human resources in any organization are the people who act as coordinators of all other factors of production to produce and distribute goods and services. They are available in different categories of sub-ordinates and super-ordinates. Physical resources, on the other hand, include resources such as classrooms, assembly halls, other halls, administrative blocks, science rooms, libraries and workshops. School effectiveness could be seen in the number of inputs into the system in relation to the outputs of the system (Dunkin, 2001). The human resources available in organizations are addressed as the personnel or staff of the organization. The school manager must bring all his abilities, physical, mental and emotional to the job. It is equally important that the school head teacher should involve people in various aspects of his organizational activities. The main job of the head teacher as the school personnel manager is to see that the pupils receive educational services through the efforts of the teachers. He is therefore charged with the responsibility of promoting the goals of the system. The head teacher tends to achieve greatly when he endeavors to understand his staff as individuals and as a group and when he respects the personality of all his sub-ordinates in the way of creating favorable atmosphere. He should be concerned with the problem of his staff, understand their needs as well as consider their ideas and suggestions. He should also encourage staff participation in decision making and have confidence in staffs’ ability to perform task (Oyedeji, 1998)
In this regard, Adeyemi (2004) enumerated the duties of the school head teacher as including responsibility to pupils, responsibility to staff, financial transactions, public relations and the evaluation of schools’ programmes. In doing this, the school head teacher should establish channels of communication between himself and his staff. Effective communication between the head teacher and is staff can be brought about through the administration of instructional programmes, administration of personnel, administration of school’s community relations as well as the administration of school business such as budgeting, financing and purchase of materials. As such, an effective school head teacher must develop certain rules for carrying out his functions. These include the development and maintenance of the organization’s structure and the recognition of future requirements (Aliyu, 2003). Since there are structural flaws such as delegation of insufficient authority, holding one individual accountable to more than one boss and the confusion of roles in a school setting, Akintayo and Adeola (2003) argued that a school head teacher should seek the structural causes of performance problems before looking for psychological ones. They also argued that positions in the school should be defined in terms of results expected and such positions should be arranged so that work would be carried out with maximum effectiveness.
Based on the above premise this study intends to investigate the strategies for improving school management.
1.3 Statement of Problem
The failure in achieving the national objectives of Nigeria as entrenched in the National Policy on Education (Federal Government of Nigeria, 2004) has been a matter of concern to educationists ( Aghenta, 2000). In all primary schools, every member of staff has specific duties to perform. How these duties are performed leaves much to be desired. It is pertinent therefore to ask which strategies can be used in School management.
1.4 Objective of the Study
The purpose of this paper is to analyze strategies for improving school management in Ado-Odo Ota local government area. The study set out to answer the question what are the strategies that can be used to improve school management.
1.5 Research Question
1. What are the strategies the can be used in improving school management
1.6 Scope of the Study
This study will employ the exploratory research design. This study make use of secondary data sourced from internet and journals to give justification of the strategies that can be used to improve school management in Ado-odo ota local government.
1.7 Significance of the Study
The study will be significant to the following stakeholder’s which include the following;
The school teacher will benefit from the study of the work. The study will aid the school teachers get aware of the strategies that can be used in improving the management capacity in school.
The School head will from the study benefit by getting aware of the strategies they can implore in the school management board in their various schools
The Educational ministry will from the findings of the study get informed of the available strategy they can use in improving the managerial capacity in various school in the country.
1.8 Operational Definition of Terms
Strategies; it is the pattern which is used in getting a job done.
School; it is a formal setting where knowledge is acquired
Management; it is the process of organizing, planning and coordinating resources in attaining a goal.