ASSESSMENT OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT SKILLS AMONG PRIVATE SCHOOL OWNERS IN IFAKO IJAYE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF LAGOS STATE

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

Background to the study

Personnel management is one of the most important and challenging functions of any organization because it constitutes the ultimate basis for the creation and utilization of the wealth of a nation. Okafor and Udu (2008) perceive management as a set of activities (planning, decision making, organizing, leading and controlling) directed at an organization’s resources (human, financial and physical) with the aim of achieving organizational goals in an efficient and effective manner. Personnel management is the acquisition of personnel or human resources and co-ordination of their performance within the organization. Riches and Morgan in Uche (2009) explain that human resource management in any organization (education or otherwise) is part of the process of management in general that focuses on the people aspect of management, ensuring that the objective of the organization is met. In order words, personnel management is the effective utilization of people at work to achieve the aims and objectives of the organization.

It is in line with the above assertion that Peretomode (2004) asserted that, personnel management acts as the wheel of progress in the realization of educational goals and objectives. It means that without an effective personnel management, an organization may find it difficult to achieve its set goals and objectives. Nwachukwu (2000), argues that for an organization to attain its desired objectives, it must seek to obtain the co-operation of the personnel working under it. It is clear that personnel management is challenging in every organization but far more challenging in educational institutions. This is because most of the activities in education deal with human beings.

The management of educational institutions is faced with not only the complexities of characters and behaviour of the staff, but also with those of the students and parents (Okoro, 2006). This means that the way and manner these chains of human elements are managed could affect the success of educational institutions. Developing therefore, a functional structure that accommodates the diverse needs of all the groups in the educational system remains a challenge to the management in the education sector.

As is the case in other fields of human endeavours, the educational sector depends on active, efficient, effective and reliable workforce to achieve success. To achieve the desired success, the administrators in the Nursery / Primary school system are saddled with the responsibility of directing, guiding and co-ordinating staff and students appropriately to achieve excellent performance. Agreeing with this, Peretomode (2004), argues that the job of managing the personnel is one of the crucial functions of educational administrators, because of the existing correlation between effective management and achievement of educational goals and objectives.

Personnel management is also called human resource management. Human resources according to Nwachukwu (2000), consists of all the individuals engaged in any of the organizational activities whose potentials such as talent and abilities are combined and utilized with other resources (financial and physical) to procure goods and services. Human resource management comprises planning, forecasting, organizing, controlling and co-ordinating specific activities like recruitment, selection, training, development, motivation, remuneration, and assessment and employee relations. These activities need to be handled through a systematic and structural approach to achieve organizational goals, and at the same time ensuring delivery of satisfactory services to the general private and the workers.

The importance of personnel management towards the achievement of educational goals cannot be over-emphasized. According to Amstrong (2005), it helps in identifying current and future human resource requirements to avoid shortages of manpower. Its importance is also seen in the areas of ensuring that justice, equity and fair-play are maintained when dealing with staff in the organization; ensuring that organizational goals are achieved through team work and co-operative efforts; ensuring that employees’ needs are recognized in the organizational goals. Personnel management equally helps in assisting personnel in building up a good career, and in selecting and replacing the staff based on laid down principles to avoid favouritism that may mar the realization of goals. This goes  to say that personnel management covers both organizational growth and provides conducive environment for employee development (Onah, 2008).

An effective and efficient personnel management makes for a good school organization that in itself brings academic success. School organization is regarded as good and productive if it is characterized with good personnel management. Such management is recognized by the competency, honesty, loyalty, inspirational stride and co-operation of the staff. Adiotiome and Ekwevugbe (2005) noted that parents and some stakeholders believe that the quality of instruction in the private Nursery / Primary schools is higher than that of the private schools because of proper management of personnel in the private schools. Private schools are those schools owned by individuals or organization while private schools are those owned by the government. Gobir (2005) asserts that private Nursery / Primary schools have qualified and experienced staff but the problem of poor performance should be blamed on poor personnel management. This is in line with the observation of the former president of Nigeria Olusegun Obasanjo who, while launching the Universal Basic Education (UBE) programme in 200 9, observed that the falling standard of education can be blamed on poor management.

Poor management of staff in the Nursery / Primary school system has been identified as the major cause of anti-social behaviour such as the increasing cases of examination malpractice, truancy, bullying, cultism, extortion and other social delinquencies observed among staff and students. In this period of rapid expansion in the number of schools and student’s enrolment, Ogba (2011) asserts that the job of managing the human elements of the organization is usually very tasking. Under such environment, the management of each educational institution requires both knowledge and application of personnel management principles and skills. The key management task becomes how to get staff to comprehensively carry out the skill development needs of students through the use of the academic curricula.

Identification of the skills and education needs of students is as important as assigning specific teaching tasks towards addressing such issues like examination malpractice and cultism. Although the Federal Reprivate of Nigeria (FRN, 2004) is very specific about the needed areas of skill development, enhancing effective personnel management strategies that address students’ needs remains a difficult task in most educational institutions. The Federal Reprivate of Nigeria (2004) indentified the major skills required in the Nursery / Primary level of education to include: equipping the students with the skills that will lead them to scientific growth, technological development, social emancipation, artistic mastery that will lead them to self reliance and respect the views of others and acquisition of vocational knowledge. The above skills can only be achieved through effective and efficient personnel management.

Nursery / Primary education is a very crucial level of education. It is a bridge between Nursery / Primary and tertiary levels of education. Nursery / Primary education level provides the general training necessary for individuals to acquire skills necessary to programme themselves for future career challenges. According to Ogba (2011), the need to bridge educational gaps arising from Nursery / Primary education and preparing students for specialization in different fields of life, place fresh demands on the managers of Nursery / Primary school level of education. This is because the number and structure of the workforce expand at this level and there exist some degree of academic independence among teachers and other staff.

The importance of personnel management in Nursery / Primary schools has remained a great concern to parents, managers of education, researchers, students and consumers of the products of education because of the quality of administration, management and achievement of set goals that is declining in education and its attendant student delinquent behavior. It must be noted that the management of schools in Nigeria before the Nigerian civil war was in the hands of the Missions and private individuals or organizations. Omeje (2006) observed that personnel management skills  in educational institutions in Nigeria before and after the war were characterized by general poor conditions of service for teachers in the then Mission and privately owned Nursery / Primary and Nursery / Primary schools.

According to the Lagos State Nursery / Primary Education Management Board Reversed Personnel management Manual (2010), Personnel management functions of the Nursery / Primary Education Management Boards in the Lagos States of Nigeria involve recruitment of staff, through proper advertisement that will not be less than six weeks and selection of qualified candidates for employment, orientation of newly employed staff by way of in-service training, provision of welfare schemes, assessment , promotion and discipline of staff. When recruitment has been effected, the next function is orientation.

Orientation is designed to help newly employed staff become familiar with the environment. Oboegbulem (2004) stated that orientation helps new staff have good impression on the work environment, the nature of the community in which they will work, and the type of colleagues they are going to work with. In-service training is a personnel management function which is essential for professional growth and to keep abreast with changes in teaching techniques and methods which are not static. Onu (2012) described in-service training as a consciously designed programme to improve the professional growth of employees for the achievement of organizational goals. Welfare of staff is also an important personnel management function. It deals with conditions of service and provision of social amenities at work place. Agu (2009) maintained that welfare of staff include such issues like adequate and prompt payment of salaries and allowances, grant of study leave, grant of maternity leave and sick leave, among others. Assessment  of staff is also a personnel management function. Assessment  means the assessment of the worth or value of an undertaking. It is judgment of value performance. Adeyemi (2009) viewed performance assessment  as a systematic and formal assessment of both employers and employees, made in a prescribed and uniform manner at a specified time to identify both individual and group weaknesses and strengths so that weaknesses can be converted into strength. It is the assessment of individual task performance based on some set standards.

Promotion is another important aspect of personnel management; it elevates staff to the next level. According to Adeyemi, promotion is the elevation of someone’s status as a result of having satisfied the required conditions. Waziri (2014) perceives staff promotion as the positive progression of staff in rank or position in recognition of their contributions towards the growth of their institution or establishment. When staff get promoted, they are motivated to work harder for the advancement of their establishments.  As a result of these issues, it has become necessary to ascertain the extent to which the Personnel Management skill have influence on the school administration in Lagos State.

Balansikat and Gerhard (2005), say that globally, the majority of school leaders were not trained as school leaders but they assume offices because of their experience. In United Kingdom and Switzerland, future and serving head teachers are trained in management of schools, also specific management and or certification is required in countries like Slovenia, Estovenia and Catelonia. Performing head teachers are trained in different institutions and in varying curriculum. The authors however, advocate for a higher degree of autonomy, coupled with curriculum of: distributed management, supporting, evaluating and developing teacher quality, goal setting, assessment and accountability, strategic finance and human resource management, and networking with other institutions (Balansikat & Gerhard, 2005).

According to Stoner (2004), management is the ability to use different forms of power to influence followers in a number of ways to accomplish organizational objectives. Ade (2003), defined management as a social influence process in which the leader seeks the voluntary participation of subordinated in an effort to reach organizational objectives.

Formal institutions including Nursery / Primary schools are established to impart knowledge, skills, habits, values and attitudes among the learners. These institutions are led by head teachers who are expected to employ management functions to achieve the organizational goals. Examples of these functions are planning and policy making (Nir, 2003); organization, motivation, and directing (Keegam, 2003); coordination and budgeting (Fapojuwo 2002); personnel management or management (Deborah, 2002); curriculum development and instructional management (Jamentz, 2002); providing students‟ personnel services such as orientation, guidance and counselling and discipline (Renald, 2000). If such management functions are employed properly, the functions can lead to good school performance.

Studies have been conducted to examine the effect of management of instructional materials on teachers, performance in Kampala district. Findings showed that there was a positive relationship between instructional materials and teachers‟ performance and that students‟ academic performance has a root from the teachers‟ capacity to perform (Mpierwe (2007).

Good educational performance in Nursery / Primary schools is an investment that enhances developing human capital which has a significant positive correlation between education and economic-social productivity of the national development (Nsubuga, 2003). The new education policy of Universal Nursery / Primary and Nursery / Primary Education which is aiming at equitable access to education, is posing a great challenge to head teachers and traditional way of managing schools, students‟ enrolment in Nursery / Primary schools is rising from time to time (Agura, 2011).The goal is not only to increase equitable access but also to improve quality and efficiency in the management of Nursery / Primary schools. This mass participation will require new management approaches such as good management, so that the government achieves its objective of access and quality of education (Nsubuga 2010).

Through inefficiency, much learning time is lost in Sub-Saharan African Education. Twenty five percent or more of school days may be lost each year in the poorly managed schools (Lewin, 2001). Sashkin adds that, mass education at Nursery / Primary education level, requires new management approaches such as visionary management and proper management styles (Sashkin, 2003). Cole (2002), defines management as inspiring people to perform. “Even if an institution has all the financial resource to excel, it may fail dismaily if management does not motivate others to accomplish their tasks effectively” he says. Management in this context, pursues effective performance in schools because it does not only examine tasks to be accomplished and who to execute them, but also seeks to include greater reinforcement characteristics like recognition, conditions of service and morale building, and coercion remuneration (Balunywa, 2002).

When referring to performance, Lav (2007), says that good performance in any Nursery / Primary school should not only be considered in terms of academic rigor, but should also focus on other domains of education like affective and psychomotor domains. This refers to other aspects like, discipline, co-curricular activities and school development aspects. In this regard, Bitamazire (2005), said that in some Nursery / Primary schools there is increasing poor performance in mainly the science subjects. Therefore this study aims at assessment of personnel management skills among head teachers in Ifako Local Government Area of Lagos State.

Statement of the Problem

             The importance of personnel management cannot be over-emphasized. First of all, it is through it that personnel are recruited, selected, trained and developed for the achievement of the objectives of an organization. Secondly, without an efficient personnel management, staff welfare and promotion will be neglected.

             It was observed by the researcher that most of the head teacher lack basic skill for effective running of the school setting and this have serious implication  on the running of the school system The problem of this study therefore is to investigate the assessment of personnel management skills among head teachers in Ifako Local Government Area of  Lagos State.

             Also, there is persistent poor performance of Nursery / Primary schools in Lagos State metropolis which was observed by the researcher. Various researches have been conducted to establish the possible causes of this poor performance in areas of: the productivity of the head teachers, instructional materials, school resources and facilities, nature of management styles of head teachers and nature of family background of students as possible causes of poor performance. Solutions to these problems have been sought to mitigate the problem but in vain. However, the researcher did not come across any research related assessment of personnel management skills among private school owners in Ifako Ijaye Local Government Area of Lagos State.

               Therefore, this study main research “assessed the personnel management skills among head teachers in Ifako Ijaye Local Government Area of Lagos State”.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study was to examine the assessment of personnel management skills among private school owners in Ifako Ijaye Local Government Area of Lagos State. The specific objective therefore are:

1.     To examine the personnel management skills of school owners as assessed by teachers.

2.     To determine the difference in school owner’s personnel management skill based on school type.

Research Question

The following questions were raised to guide the conduct of the study:

1.     What are the personnel management skills of school owners as assessed by teachers?

Research Hypotheses

The following research hypothesis was formulated to guide the conduct of the study:

H_o1:  There is no significant difference in school owner’s personnel management skill based on school type.

Significance of the Study

The findings of this study will be of immense benefit to the following stakeholders in education: the Nursery / Primary Education Management Boards in Lagos States, Nigeria, the ministries of education in the Lagos States, the principals, the teachers, non-teaching staff, students, parents, researchers and the general private.

The result of this study will be of benefit to the school admistration since it will provide information regarding the level of compliance with the personnel management manual provisions on staff recruitment and posting, because it will provide a feedback to the Boards regarding the extent to which the boards comply with the personnel management manuals’ provision on staff development programmes. It will also reveal to the need for more development programmes for staff to enhance staff performance. The result of this study will be benefit the owners of the private school, since the study will provide information regarding the extent of compliance to the personnel management manual’s provisions on staff welfare services. The result will help the private owners to ensure that staff welfare packages are taken very serious to increase staff output.

The result of this study will benefit the private owners in Lagos States because it will provide information regarding the extent to which the administration comply with the personnel management mammals’ provision on staff discipline. This result will help the Boards ascertain whether staff discipline is high and if otherwise what other methods of disciplinary actions could be taken on staff. Staff on the other hand will benefit from this study to know that good behavior is usually rewarded by the Boards. The results of this study will benefit the management Boards because it will provide information regarding the extent the Board complies with the personnel management manuals provision an assessment of staff. It will also provide necessary information as to whether the Boards appraise staff as at and when due and the mechanisms used in appraising both teaching and non-teaching staff of the Boards. Staff of the Boards will also benefit since the study will expose them to the use of assessment  techniques of the Boards.

The findings of this study may be of importance to the government, school leaders, teachers, parents and students who will read this book. Although the study revealed that there is no significant relationship between management of head teachers and school performance in Nursery / Primary schools, the study showed that inadequate management of head teachers contributes to the poor performance of schools. Therefore, this study may benefit the following parties and stake holders:

Government, or the Ministry of Education: The study will help the government to always consider management and management courses when hiring school heads. Also the government will be aroused to always organise induction courses and in – service training programs for the newly appointed head teachers particularly those who are already serving but who did not undertake management and management courses at university.

School leaders and managers: The study will assist the serving head teachers to always crave for short management courses and in-service programs in order to update themselves in their management skills. More so, the study will awaken the school academic managers namely: head teachers, deputy head teachers, and director of studies to always monitor and supervise the teaching learning process effectively.

Teachers, students and parents: The teachers and students will be helped in their day to day management of classroom activities and improve performance. Students, parents and the community at large will benefit from the improved performance in areas of academics and discipline.

To researchers: The study will form a basis for further research on the causes of poor performance in schools such as the nature of students that are recruited.

The result of this study will be of benefit to future researchers because the findings will provide additional body of knowledge in the field of personnel or human resource management in our educational institutions.

Scope of the Study

             This study was limited to head teachers in Lagos State. The study focused only on head teachers from schools, this study was limited in scope to the main variables of the assessment of personnel management skills among private school owners in Ifako Local Government Area Of Lagos State and the moderator variables gender, length of years in services and educational qualification.

             Although a plethora of statistics abound, this study was limited to the use of Pearson Product Moment Correlation statistical package in line with the design of the study, hypotheses and type of data that was generated for the study.

Operational Definition of Terms

The definitions of some of the major terms used in this study are operationally given below. This is to avoid ambiguities that might hinder the understanding of issues discussed in the study.

Assessment: refer to the level to which a particular project is being carried out effectively

Head teacher: refer to the person in charge of a given organization particularly a school setting environment

Personnel Management skill: refer to personal way in which a particular person carried out his / her objective towards a particular exercise 

Private School: refer to the school owned by individual in the society apart from Government.

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