PRINCIPALS’ APPLICATION OF PERSONNEL AND FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT PRACTICES FOR EFFECTIVE ADMINISTRATION OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN AWKA EDUCATION ZONE, ANAMBRA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The main purpose of the study was to determine principals’ application of personnel and financial management practices for effective administration of secondary schools in Awka Education zone, Anambra State, Nigeria. Two research questions guided the study and two hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised 116 principals made up of 61 public secondary schools principals and 55 private secondary school principals in the zone. Instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire developed by the researchers. The instrument was validated by three experts in business education. The instrument was further subjected to reliability testing through a pilot test on 20 principals, ten from private and ten from public secondary schools in Enugu State who were not included in the population of the study. The application of Cronbach Alpha on the obtained data yielded coefficient values of 0.78 and 0.82 for the two clusters of the instrument with an overall reliability co-efficient of 0.80. Data collected were analyzed using mean, standard deviation and t-test. Findings of the study revealed that principals in public and private secondary schools applied personnel and financial management practices for effective administration of secondary schools to a moderate extent, and that public and private secondary school principals did not differ in their mean ratings on their application of personnel and financial management practices for effective administration of secondary schools in Awka Education Zone, Anambra State, Nigeria. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that the Post Primary School Service Commission should organize training programmes and conferences for principals in secondary school where they will be educated on the need to understand the strategies for motivating and rewarding staff for greater performance on the job.