STUDENTS’ PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT PRACTICES ADOPTED BY PRINCIPALS FOR QUALITY ASSURANCE IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ANAMBRA STATE

Abstract

This study determined students’ personnel management practices adopted by principals for quality assurance in public and private secondary schools in Anambra state. Three specific purposes and three research questions guided the study. Three null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. A descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised all the 661 principals (267 public and 394 private) of secondary schools in Anambra State. Census sampling technique was adopted for the study. A researcher-developed instrument titled “Students’ Personnel Management Practices Questionnaire (SPMPQ) was used for data collection. The instrument was face validated by three experts. Two experts from the Department of Educational Management and Policy and one expert from the Department of Educational Foundation (Measurement and Evaluation) all in the Faculty of Education, Nnamdi Azikiwe University. The internal consistency co-efficient for the three clusters of SPMPQ were 0.82, 0.88 and 0.81 with overall coefficient of 0.83 obtained using Cronbach’s Alpha method. Data were analyzed using mean and t-test. The findings of the study revealed among others that students’ disciplinary management, counseling and health management practices were all adopted by principals of public and private secondary schools in Anambra State for quality assurance. Based on the findings, the study recommended that the public secondary school principals in Anambra State should intensify disciplinary management practices through effective supervision, enforcement of school rules, and collaboration with parents and teachers in order to maintain school discipline and enhance quality assurance, proprietors of private secondary schools in the state should employ qualified guidance counsellors and establish functional counselling units to provide students with adequate academic, vocational, and emotional support services, parents, teachers, and school administrators in the state should collaborate more effectively in monitoring students’ behaviour, health, and academic adjustment to ensure holistic development and improved educational outcomes.