COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF PRINCIPALS APPLICATION OF BUDGETING PRACTICES FOR EFFECTIVE FINNANCIL MANAGEMENT IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ANAMBRA STATE.

Abstract

The study compared comparative analysis of principals’ application of budgeting practices for
effective financial management in public and private secondary schools in Anambra state. Two
research questions guided the study and two null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 alpha level.
Descriptive Survey research design was adopted for this study. The population of the study
comprised 1127 principals, 268 public and 859 private secondary schools in Anambra State.
Through a multistage sampling procedure, procedure sample a total of 295 (70 public and 225
private) principals were selected. A questionnaire titled " Comparative Analysis of Principals’
Application of Budgeting Practices for Effective Financial Management Questionnaire
(CAPABPEFMQ)" was the instrument used for data collection. The instruments were face
validated by three experts who were lecturers in the department of educational management and
policy and measurement and evaluation in the department of Educational Foundation in Faculty
of Education all in Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka. Reliability of the instrument was establish
using Cronbach alpha method which yielded the overall coefficient was 0.89. Mean and Standard
deviation was used to answer research questions, while t-test was use to test the hypotheses. The
findings of the study revealed among others that principals in both public and private secondary
schools agreed that incremental budgeting practices are applied in managing school finances.
Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that the principals in both public and
private secondary schools in Anambra State should embark on regular and continuous training
such as seminars, workshops, conference on budgeting and financial management for continuous
improvement on budget application.