PRINCIPALS’ BUREAUCRATIC PRINCIPLES AND EFFECTIVE ADMINISTRATION OF SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN PORT HARCOURT METROPOLIS

Abstract

This study examined the principals’ bureaucratic principles and effective administration of senior secondary schools in Port Harcourt Metropolis. The study was guided by three research objectives from which three research questions were posed and three hypotheses were tested. The study adopted a correlational survey design with a population of 111 school principals in the 37 public senior secondary schools in Port-Harcourt and Obio/Akpor Local Government Areas of Rivers State. The entire population of 111 principals was taken as census without sampling due to the manageable size of the population. The instruments for data collection were researcher-designed questionnaires titled “Principals’ Bureaucratic Principles Questionnaire” and “Effective Administration of Secondary Schools Questionnaire” respectively. The instruments were validated by two experts in Educational Management. The internal consistencies of the instruments were determined using the Cronbach Alpha statistics. A composite reliability coefficient of 0.80 was obtained which showed the instrument was reliable. The research questions were answered and the hypotheses tested using Pearson Product Moment Correlation statistics. The hypotheses were further subjected to t-transformation to establish the significance of the r-value  at 0.05 level of significance. The result of the analyzed data revealed that there is a high positive relationship between the principle of specialization, hierarchy of authority and effective administration of public senior secondary schools in Port Harcourt metropolis, Rivers State.   Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that school administrators should ensure teachers are assigned subjects in their respective areas of specialization as this would encourage mastery of subject matter and enhance teachers’ efficiency on the job.