INFLUENCE OF INSTITUTIONAL VARIABLES ON PRINCIPALS’ ADMINISTRATIVE EFFECTIVENESS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN AKWA IBOM STATE, NIGERIA

 

1

 

The principal is the administrative head of a secondary school. He performs defined administrative roles to ensure that the teachers, students and subordinate staff perform their work co-operatively to see that the organizational goals are fully achieved. The administrative roles of the principal are enormous and complex. The administrative duties of school administrator to include planning the work to be done with appropriate scheduling; organizing the formal structure of the school with defined line of authority; assigning duties to individual staff, including subject allocation; directing the operations

 

of the school; coordinating the school activities to bring about unity of effort; reporting, communicating or supplying administrative information to teachers, students, parents and executives who are higher up on the line of authority; and budgeting or planning the finances of the school.

In addition, the principal should be skillful enough in community relations, personnel management, financial administration and records keeping. He should also be skillful in communication, enforcement of school discipline, and supervision of classroom instruction. The principal as an embodiment of force that guides and directs the entire organization towards the realization of its goals. Adjudging from the administrative roles of the school administrator, Peretomode (2012) stated that the success of any educational institution depends largely on the administrative effectiveness of the administrator. Oyewole (2013) observed that the administration of secondary school system in Nigeria has been bedeviled with many teething problems which consequently affected the effectiveness of some principals in the process of administering the school system. The principals of secondary schools in Nigeria are faced with inadequacy and sometimes non-availability of infrastructural facilities that should help smoothen the teaching and learning process, thus, posing special administrative problems. In large schools, for example, the ever increasing students‟ enrolment has made school administration more complex and difficult. It brings about the problems of students‟ discipline, inadequate classroom accommodation, and laboratory equipment.

School administration is associated with considerable responsibilities, including catering for the different inadequacies that accompany increased school size and other institutional variables. Administration is the process of getting things done with and through people in order to achieve a definite purpose. It is a social process concerned with identifying, motivating, controlling and unifying formally and informally

 

organized human and material resources within an integrated system designed specifically to accomplish pre-determined goals (Okorji & Unachukwu, 2014). According to Ezeugbor (2014), administration is effective when the administrator is able to coordinate resources and people‟s efforts for the achievement of organizational goals. Considering the state of principals‟ administrative effectiveness, Ibukun, Oyewole and Abe (2011) found that secondary school principals in Ekiti State were perceived by their teachers to be effective in carrying out their administrative duties.

The principal‟s administrative effectiveness refers to the quality of the roles performed by the principal in a day-to-day running of the school. This can be measured by taking stock of the extent to which the principal performs his roles. It is obvious that the principals differ by their administrative effectiveness and several factors contribute to the difference. The factors could be personal or institutional. On personal factors, Donney (2011) explained that some principals are lazy and less committed to their responsibilities. They do not possess the qualifications of well-to-do administrators such as ability to instill good human relations, ability to make decisions, health and fitness for the job, willingness to accept responsibility, understanding the work, command of administrative skills and intellectual capacity. Majority of the school principals are not leaving up to their expectations. Certain factors may be exerting influence on their administrative effectiveness. These factors may likely include institutional factors.

Institutional factors are those specific conditions and characteristics that are prevalent in an institution and which may directly or indirectly influence the effective performance of the institution‟s administrator. The term “Institution” refers to an educational establishment having the responsibility of educating students. Within the secondary school system, Maples (2010) observed that the effectiveness of the principal is always influenced by the variables prevalent in the institution. Some of such

 

institutional variables include communication, school size, school/community relations, organizational structure, funding, and quantity of qualified staff, behavior of students, school plant and location.

Considering institutional communication, there is a close relationship between communication and the extent of performance of any administrative task by the administrator. This is obvious because for an administrator to make wise decisions he needs adequate and valid data that will enable him gain alternative course of action and facilitate fair comparison and satisfactory evaluation.

In terms of school size, one could be forced to think twice if school size actually affects an organizational behaviour. An organization‟s internal structure contributes to explaining and predicting behaviour. Organizational structure specifically defines the structural relationship in which people work, and has a bearing on employees‟ attitude and behavior. When an employee works in an environment with a simple structure, he knows what he is supposed to do, how to do it and to whom he is supposed to report to. This therefore, motivates and facilitates him to higher level of performance. Some structures also give employees autonomy where control in such organization is tight.

Institutional funding has been facing serious financial crises because schools are not equipped with the facilities most needed for work. Funding education has been a problem for government because of the uncontrolled increase in eligible school population. This has a way of pushing up the cost related to funding education, particularly, secondary school education. This also has raised the unprecedented rate of educational expansion without a corresponding expansion in the financial base of the country. Government‟s expenditure on education is hardly enough to meet the cost of education.

 

Considering the number of qualified staff, Peretomode (2012) stated that adequate staffing could be achieved if the personnel management process is effective. He defined personnel management as the activities of recruitment and employment, manpower planning, employee training and management development, organization planning, organizational development, wage and salary administration, health and safety (at work), benefits and service, union management relation and personnel research. With this definition one can see that it is a very crucial variable that can enhance effective administration. Management of personnel entails obtaining, organizing and motivating the human resources required by the organization by developing a climate and management style, which will promote effective effort, co-operation and trust between all the people working in it. It also helps the organization meet its legal obligations and social responsibilities towards its employees with regards to the condition of work and quality of life provided for them. Staff welfare is important in the success of the secondary school administration. In the same vein, Ochai (2012) posited that the principal is the manager of students‟ personnel matters and he has a sensitive role to perform in planning, supervising, organizing and coordinating students‟ matters.

The school plant management is another variable that could determine the administrative effectiveness of the principal. A good school plant gives the right type of atmosphere required for effective learning. Invariably, a bad one affects the school negatively. Some parents choose schools for their wards based mainly on the external appearance of the school compound. Since the school exists for the purpose of teaching and learning, everything in the school compound should gear towards the achievement of the pre-determined goals of the school. Ochai (2012) opined that there tend to be a positive relationship between the types of structure and facilities in the school and the level of achievement of the students, teachers and principal.

 

The educational sector in Akwa Ibom State does not seem to be immune to the influence of certain institutional variables that may affect the effectiveness of principals. This influence may as well include the sex differences of principals. The existence of sex differences in principals‟ administrative effectiveness, as female principals used problem solving in their administration more than male principal. They ensure prompt supply of materials needed for teaching and also ensure prompt circulation of information needed by staff for effective administration, the male principals were more active in staff discipline, trying to push them to perform their work even when the materials needed for the work like chalk, laboratory, supplies and equipment are not available. Programmes in college that targeted the preparation of educational administrators sprang around the country where female participated in these and were appointed to both superintendent and administrative position. Irrespective of sex, the administrator needs to accommodate all the school variables for effective administration.

In secondary schools, the principals would need information about the influence of institutional variables on their administrative effectiveness. The information would likely help them to sort ways of harnessing the variables toward achieving desirable outcome as regards administrative effectiveness. Effectiveness is synonymous to an individual‟s capability to properly perform specific administrative tasks and skills with the intent of realizing effective administrative outcome. The principals‟ administrative effectiveness seems measurable in the areas of prompt supply of materials needed for teaching, prompt circulation of information needed by staff for effective job operation, staff/students‟ discipline, prudent school plant management, efficient school-community relations, and effective supervision of academic activities.

To be effective, the principals need to consider and accommodate all influential school variables toward ensuring administrative effectiveness (Abe, 2012). However, it has not been established whether institutional variables in secondary schools in Akwa Ibom State could in any way influence the principals‟ administrative effectiveness. Therefore, this study was designed to find out the influence of institutional variables on principals‟ administrative effectiveness in secondary schools in Akwa Ibom State.

The principal‟s administrative effectiveness contributes to the attainment of organizational goals. Good communication process, school size and funding, as well as effective school plant management and availability of qualified teachers in the school would seem to positively influence the administrative effectiveness of the principal. Considering this fact, one would think that the school principals are doing everything possible to harness the institutional variables (communication, school size, funding, school plant and quality of teachers) to the advantage of attaining administrative effectiveness and organizational goals.

Some principals tend to be ineffective as they are to provide adequate classroom accommodation for the students; to control students‟ loitering, bullying and truancy and to ensure that classes are taught by teachers following scheduled time-table. The ineffective principals are also unable to ensure prompt supply of materials needed for teaching, prompt circulation of information needed by staff for effective job operation, staff/students discipline, prudent school plant management, efficient school-community relations, and effective supervision of academic activities. These problems could hamper administrative effectiveness. 

Several researches have been carried out in order to solve the problem of students‟ poor academic achievement. However, most of the studies looked at the influence of the teacher variables on students' academic achievement (Abdulhamid, 2013; Igberadja, 2016; Temitope & Olabanji., 2015; Aina, Olanipekun, &Garuba 2015). None of these studies looked at establishing whether institutional variables constitute a problem to the administrative effectiveness of the principals in secondary schools in Akwa Ibom State despite the reports of decline in the achievement of students in science subjects (The WAEC chief examiners report of 2014-2018). It is therefore based on the above observed gap that the present study seeks to examine the influence of institutional variables on principal‟s administrative effectiveness in secondary schools in Akwa Ibom State.

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of institutional variables on administrative effectiveness of principals in Akwa Ibom State. Specifically, the study sought to:

The following research questions were raised to guide the study:

The following hypotheses were raised to guide the study and were tested at 0.5 significance.

This study, if implemented, would be beneficial to the Ministry of Education, State Secondary Education Board, principals, parents, guardians, teachers, students, the school-host-community and researchers. The findings of the study on the influence of school size on administrative effectiveness of principals would be beneficial to the Ministry of Education. The Ministry would have useful information regarding school size as determinant of principal‟s administrative effectiveness. This information could help the ministry to develop policy in relation to school size in order to strengthen the administrative effectiveness of the principals.

The information to be provided by this study would help the State Secondary Education Board to organize workshop for principals on effective ways of controlling the institutional variables to the advantage of enhancing administrative effectiveness in schools.

The study would inform the secondary school principals of the influence of institutional variables on their administrative effectiveness. The information would help them to seek ways of improving or managing variables to enhance effective school administration for the benefits of the entire secondary school system. The ability to manage these variables would help to shape the effectiveness of principals in the right direction.

The parents and guardians could utilize the information in making decision to allow or not to allow their children to enroll in school with large size enrolment.

The teachers, students and the school-host-community would be informed specifically of the principal‟s communication process, and they would in turn utilize such avenue to get administrative information from the office of the principal.

Finally, researchers would stand to benefit from this study as it may form a basis and also serve as a reference material for further studies.

This study was delimited to institutional variables on administrative effectiveness of principals in secondary schools in Akwa Ibom State. The study also focused on institutional variables such as institutional communication process, school size, management funding, school plant management and number of qualified teachers (Independent variables). The dependent variable was delimited to principals‟ administrative effectiveness. More so, in this study vice principals were also treated as principals since they perform similar functions and most vice principals act when the principals are indisposed.