ANALYSIS OF INCOME GENERATING ACTIVITIES OF ANAMBRA STATE SECONDARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS AS FUNDING STRATEGIES IN A DEPRESSED ECONOMY

Abstract

The present Nigerian economic depression seems to have resulted in myriad of problems such as hike in cost of education and fall in purchasing value of the Naira in mobilizing and controlling various resources in the school. Consequently, the need to analyze the income generating activities adopted by Anambra State secondary school principals as alternative funding strategies in a depressed economy becomes imperative. Two research questions guided the study. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. Out of the population of 258 principals in Anambra state, the researchers adopted the multi stage technique in sampling 130 principals for the study. The instrument for data collection was researchers developed questionnaire titled. ‘‘Principals’ Income Generating Activities Questionnaire (PIGAQ)’’.The instrument was validated by three experts who are all lecturers in the Faculty of Education, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. The cronbach alpha was used to determine the reliability of the instrument. This yielded a high reliability coefficient of 0.86 and .84 for Parts A and B respectively. The researchers with five research assistants collected data for the study using the direct approach method. A 94% return was recorded. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions. The findings of the study revealed that many agricultural-based and commercial-based income generating activities have not been fully exploited by secondary school principals in Anambra state. Based on the findings of this study, it was recommended among others that: secondary schools principals in Anambra state should leverage on the financial prospect of operating fishpond in the schools, making detergents and soaps for sale as alternative funding strategies.