ABSTRACT
This
study was carried out to appraise community participation in the administration
of public secondary schools in Education Zone “C ” of Benue State. Four
research questions and two null hypotheses were posed and formulated
respectively to guide the study. The hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of
significance. The related literature to the study was reviewed under four main
headings namely: conceptual framework, theoretical framework, review of related
empirical studies and summary of literature review. This study used descriptive
survey research design. The population of the study was 1427 while the sample
was 284 respondents. The instrument for data collection was a questionnaire
titled “Appraisal of Community Participation Questionnaire (ACPQ)”. Three
experts validated the instrument, two in Educational Administration and
Planning, department of educational foundations and one expert in measurement
and evaluation, department of science education, all from University of
Nigeria, Nsukka. The instrument was trial tested and the overall reliability
coefficient of 0.91 was obtained. Mean and standard deviation were used to
answer the research questions that guided the study, while t-test statistic was
used to test the null hypotheses formulated at 0.05 level of significance. The
Results of the study revealed that: the communities participate in funding
public secondary schools in Education Zone “C” of Benue State to a less extent,
the communities also participate in the provision of infrastructural facilities
in Education Zone “C” of Benue State to a less extent. Communication gap
between the community and the school was one of the problems militating against
community participation in administration of public secondary schools. The
respondents in rural and urban schools had the same views on the strategies for
integrating community members for effective school administration in Education
Zone “C” of Benue State. It was recommended among others that since the
Principal, the teachers and the education administrators are also members of
the community, they can help to disseminate information to other members of the
community on the need to take active participation in the education of the
young ones. The limitations of this study were highlighted and suggestions were
made for further studies.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Education is recognized as the cornerstone for sustainable development.
Education is a veritable instrument for achieving economic development and
social transformation of every society. Fertig
(2000) regards education as a social responsibility that every citizen
should enjoy as a member of a country and that everyone has a right to
education. Federal Republic of Nigeria (2004) also accepted education as an
instrument that brings about even and orderly development for a country. Senge (2006) opined that socio-economic
development of any nation hinges on its level of educational development. The author further stressed that any country that
fails to educate her citizens is trying with the level of her development;
hence education is regarded as an investment which must yield high dividend.
Consequently, Ogundele (2008) noted that Nigeria as a country is faced
with a lot of crises in her educational industry. These crises had been
attributed to inadequate funding, poor and irregular payment of salaries,
students’ population explosion, poor teachers’ job satisfaction, and inadequate
supply of educational facilities and needed equipment for effective teaching
learning process. The result of this brings about low quality and fallen
standard of education in our secondary school system. The filmsy excuse of the
government is that government alone cannot take up total responsibilities of
education that it has to be paid for by all and sundry.
Due to the inability of Government to attend to these issues, appraisal
of community participation in the administration of public secondary schools
becomes necessary. Appraisal is an expert estimation of quality, quantity and
other characteristics of someone or something. According to Bondesio (2000),
appraisal is the act of assessing an expert or official value of something for
the achievement of goals and objectives. In this context, appraisal is used to
determine the level of community participation in the administration public
secondary school.
Community could be viewed in terms of all the people or group of people
living within a specific geographical area such as a village, a town, a city, a
neighbourhood or even a whole state. Community when conceived in this way is
used in two senses, first, as social unit and second as geographical or
ecological unit. This implies that such groups of people are closely joined
together and organized. This togetherness among the people spells out a common
feeling of community (Oghuvbu 2004). The
researcher further perceived community as a people or group of people who share
common interest or functions such as farming group or agricultural group
education, culture or religion. This group may not include everyone within the
geographical area or boundary, but who have a particular interest or functions
in common. Ugwu (2000) described a community
as a people obliged to one another not because of
place of birth, race, sex, religion but people bound to one another and
governed by shared taste, value, specific words for common interest. Throughout
history, the relationship between the school and the community has been a
matter of major concern. Yusuf (2000) opined that it is important that the school and the
community should have mutual relationship to foster cordial existence. The researcher further stated
that the community where the school is situated forms a focus point of
assessing the activities of the school and make necessary contributions towards
its growth.
In a similar vein, one can define community as a legal, political or
administrative unit. As a legal unit, it is likened to a municipality, a school
district or a nation with a clearly defined social structure. In this sense, a
community will feature the formulation of laws to guide the conduct of members,
and this is what is required to ensure its existence. The regulations or laws
are enforced by an administrative unit. As a legal unit, it is likened to a
municipality, a school district or a nation with a clearly defined social
structure. The community through a healthy working relationship with the school
management and the entire school community would get to know the school
strength and weaknesses (Obiechina, 2006).
Community participation in the administration of
secondary schools has become necessary as a result of lack of proper
management, lack of funding, facilities and equipment, poor learning
environment, inadequate provision of teaching materials, problem of discipline
and proper supervision of instruction. The community has immense input in the
funding of educational projects such as endowment funding, sponsoring of
projects and Parents Teachers Association involvement (Okoro and Okoro, 2005).
All these indicate that the community and the school exist side by side and
always being in existence as a pre-existing condition for effective school
administration. The most involvement of parents in school matters in most of the communities is usually through the Parent
Teacher Association
(PTA). With a few exceptions, the traditional role of the PTA has been the
making of financial contributions to schools (Ugwu, 2010).
The participation of communities in the administration of secondary
schools has gone beyond mere financial contributions; however, educational
development in some parts of the country has witnessed increased involvement of
the whole communities. Some communities in Nigeria have established secondary
schools through their own initiatives in the past, e.g The education zone ‘C’
in Benue built community secondary schools in various local government and this
local are Agila community secondary school Apa, Achaga community secondary
school, Ikobi community secondary school, Ikobi, Adoka community secondary
school Adoka and Okpiko community secondary school Alaglanu. The Parent-Teacher
Association (P.T.A) helps in the general development of the school along with
other community members, by providing the school with classrooms, dormitory
blocks, staff quarters, science laboratories and equipment, electric plant generators,
school vans, libraries, books and classroom equipment (Oghuvbu
and Iyeke, 2004). They get the funds for these by launching Parents
Teachers Association (P.T.A) funds and by contributing individually, directly or
indirectly, towards the funds. The Parents Teachers Association (P.T.A) also
helps the authority to maintain discipline by the children at home on how to
behave at school.
On the other hand, the community needs to monitor and supervise the
schools to see to their needs, problems and progress towards the education of
their children. Bello (2011) believed that open relationship between the school
and community could bring about high opportunities that will allow community resources
to be optimally utilized for the school improvement. Yusuf (2000) opined that a
community school relation is a strong instrument for effective school
administration. Within the school system, participation involves a feeling of
identification with and responsibility to the school and academic life it offers.
Administration is getting things done in order to accomplish defined
objectives. Akpotowoh (2006) agree that school administration aims at using
both human and material resources within the school system for the achievement
of objectives. Nwankwo, in particular, defined educational administration as
arrangement of the human and material resources and programmes available for
education and carefully using them systematically for the achievement of
articulated objectives. This involves describing tasks to be performed to
accomplish certain objectives, assigning these tasks to carefully selected and
trained personnel, making the personnel perform efficiently by using the tools
provided for them, coordinating some formal structures which permits a hierarchal
allocation of responsibilities with communication flow, and contributing to the
fact that administration involves co-ordination of human and material resources
towards the attainment of pre-determined objectives.
The central purpose of administration in general is the coordination of
human and material resources towards the attainment of some predetermined
objectives. Okendu (2009) sees administrative effectiveness as a careful,
systematic arrangement of resources by the principal for the realization of the
objectives of the school. For administration to be effective, there are
processes that must be followed by the administrators. This is because
administration is seen as a....
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