SAFETY MEASURES ADOPTED BY PRINCIPALS FOR EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ANAMBRA STATE

Abstract

This paper examined administrators’ safety techniques for management of public secondary schools in Anambra State. Two research questions guided the study. A descriptive survey research design employed was in the study. Population for the study comprised 259 public secondary school principals from the six education zones in Anambra State. Sample size of the study consisted of 181 principals selected out of the entire principals’ population from the 6 education zones at 70% using the stratified random sampling technique. A 21-item researchers-developed questionnaire which was structured on a 4-point scale of Strongly Agree (SA), Agree (A), Disagree (D) and Strongly Disagree (SD) titled “Administrators Safety Techniques Questionnaire (ASTQ)” was the main instrument used for data collection. The research instrument was face validated by three experts, two of the experts were from the Department of Educational Management and Policy, one from Measurement and Evaluation from the Department of Educational Foundations, all from the Faculty of Education, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State. Reliability of the research instrument was established through a pilot-test carried out on a sample of 10 public secondary school principals from 10 public schools in Anambra State, which were not part of the studied areas. Scores obtained after the pilot test was measured using Cronbach Alpha statistics which gave coefficient reliability value of 0.85 and 0.90 for the two clusters respectively, and were added up to give an overall internal consistency reliability value of 0.88, showcasing that the instrument was reliable to collect the necessary data for the study. Data collected were analyzed using mean scores and standard deviation. The findings of this study revealed, among others that the public secondary school administrators’ deployment of the safety techniques for management of public secondary schools in Anambra State was inadequate. Based on the findings of this study, it was recommended among others that; Anambra State government working together with the Post Primary Schools Service Commission (PPSSC) and the State Ministry of Education should ensure that the school administrators deploy and use effective health care safety techniques through adequate funding of the health care programmes in schools.