A Comparative Study of Management Practices of Private and Public Secondary Schools in Nigeria
Chapter One
Objectives of the Study
The objective of the study to find out whether significant difference exists between the academic performance of public and Private secondary Schools and their managements
- To identify the management practices in public secondary school and student’s performance
- To identify the management practices in private secondary schools and student’s performances
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Concept of Management
The word management has been conceptualized in so many ways with the same idea of achieving organizational goals and meeting the needs of the workers. Management is that network of planning, organizing, coordinating and controlling of activities for the achievement of organizational goals. Since human beings are part and parcel of the management process, the goals of the organization must include their well being. Adesina (1990) defined management as the organization and mobilization of all human and material resources in a particular system for the achievement of identified objectives. Adesina maintained that management is the coordination of the resources of an organization through the process of planning, organizing, directing and controlling activities in the organization in order to attain organizational goals. Some see management as a process. According to Nwachukwu (2000) management is the coordination of all the resources of an organization through the process of planning, organizing, directing and controlling in order to attain organizational objectives. Peretomode (1996) asserts that management is the social or interactional process involving a sequence of coordinated events such as planning, organizing, coordinating and controlling or leading in order to use available resources to achieve a desired outcome in the fastest and most efficient way. It then means that part of management implies using people to achieve the set goals of Secondary Education Management Boards in the South East.
Management involves the supervision, controlling and coordinating of activities aimed at achieving optimum results with organizational resources. It is in line with the above that UNESCO in Ogunu (2001) defined management as a social process which is designed to ensure the cooperation, participation, intervention and involvement of others in the achievement of organizational goals. According to Obi (2003), management is a process of planning, organizing operations, in order to achieve the attainment of set objectives. From the above definitions, management could be seen as an art of using human resources so as to achieve organizational goals. Osuala (2004) asserted that management is the process of achieving an organization’s goal through the coordinated performance of five specific functions namely: planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling. Onuka (2009) viewed management as everyday phenomenon where nobody can be left out since all persons get involved in one collective responsibility of any organization, including the Secondary Education Management Board. Ogbonnanya (2009) observed that the importance of management to any organization cannot be overemphasized. It is obvious then that management, including that of human resource is very important for any organization to plan, control, direct, coordinate and execute its activities aimed at actualizing its objective.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Design
The ex post facto/causal comparative research design was employed in the study. The research design is useful whenever two groups differ on independent variables of the groups and the hypothesis about differences on one or more dependent variables of the groups need to be tested. In this study the ex post facto design is deemed fit because the study attempted to test hypotheses on the performance of two groups which differ on characteristics such as ownership of schools, gender and school location.
Population of the Study
The population of the study consists of all public and private secondary school in Imo state. There are 194 government approved public secondary schools and 45 government approved private secondary schools, giving a total of 239 registered secondary schools with the student population of about 394,065.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS
Research question 1
What is the level of performance in public secondary school? To answer this research question data collected were subjected to percentage and frequency counts the results were presented in the table below.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION, RECOMMENDATION
Summary
The result obtained also revealed that students in private Secondary schools in rural areas performed better in Basic Science than their public counterpart. The result obtained also revealed that students in private Secondary schools in rural areas performed better in Basic Science than those in public secondary schools in rural areas this is because majority 55% had credit pass in private schools whereas few 35% had credit pass in rural public schools. Generally, students in rural areas had low performance when compared to those in urban schools. The low level of students performances in rural public schools might perhaps be attributed to what we can described as poor staffing in schools.
Frequent withdrawal of children from school, truancy, the study also agrees with Oke(1992), Adeyemi (1998) and Onipede (2003) that private schools in rural areas perform better.
The result of the analysis had shown that male students in both public and Private secondary schools in Imo state outperformed their female counterparts.
The result revealed a credit pass of 46.44% and 44.82% male and female students respectively. The result of this study is in line with those of Adhimabi and Heneveld(1995) who observed that male students outperformed the female students academically.
However, result of this study disagrees with the study of Yahaya (2005) who opined that gender analysis of performance is not on biological differences.
It is obvious from the results presented above, that pupils in the private Secondary schools performed better than their counterparts in the public schools, lending credence to earlier study reported (Braun, Jenkins &Grigg, 2006; Lubienski & Lubienski, 2006; and Yoloye, 1988;). This of course could be attributed to a number of factors.
Conclusion
The study concludes that:
- Students in private secondary schools in urban areas in Imo state performed better than those in public Secondary Schools
- Students in private Secondary Schools in rural areas performed better in Secondary Schools.
- Male students in private schools in Imo State performed better than female students.
- Male students in public Secondary Schools in Imo State performed better than their fellow female students
Recommendation
Base on the findings of the study the following recommendation were made
- The state government should provide opportunities for teachers andScience teachers of other subjects to attend seminars, service courses and workshops to avail them the opportunity of keeping abreast with effective andcurrent methods of teaching to facilitate teaching in schools.
- Qualified teachers with NCE, BSc (ed) must be employed to teach in schools .
- The salary of teachers should be enhanced and science allowances paid promptly to encourage and motivate them to work hard.
- The use of internet and information communication technology (ICT) is stronglyrecommended for the teaching in Schools Governments, private organizations and individuals concerned with the business of education should endeavor to address the obstacles hindering effective academic performance of students. This can be done by developing achievement motivation in students through achievement motivation training.
- There is the need for the recognition of individual differences in students and the need to deal with them accordingly. Counselors should provide the necessary assistance and psychological support for students from single parent family so as to overcome their emotional problems.
- There is also the need to keep enlightening the parents of the importance of the home structure on the life of children. This is necessary so that parents can understand the implications and consequences of parental separation and thus mobilize all resources to curtail the problems arising from the situation. Generally, there is need to combat the continuing declining state of education by providing more funds and materials for the up-liftment of our educational system.
- Finally, school counselors should be employed in institutions of learning and adequate supervision to be put in place to ensure provision of necessary guidance services to students.
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