LOCAL CONTROL OF EDUCATION AND EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT OF POST-BASIC SCHOOLS IN NORTH-EAST, NIGERIA.

Abstract

The study examined Local Control of Education and Effective Management of Post-Basic Schools in North-East, Nigeria. Two (2) research purposes, research questions and hypotheses guided the study. The population of the study comprised twenty-one thousand seven hundred and seventy-three (21773) teachers in one thousand three hundred and four (1304) Post-basic Schools in the North East Geopolitical Zone. A sample of one thousand, three hundred and ninety-eight (1398) Post-basic School teachers drawn from the population was used for the study. The study adopted correlational research design and used two questionnaires designed by the researcher for data collection. The questionnaires were tagged Local Control of Education Questionnaire (LCEQ) and Effective Management Questionnaire (EMQ). Both (LCEQ) and (EMQ) were validated by three experts in the Faculty of Education, Taraba State University, Jalingo. Reliability coefficients of .76 and .76 were obtained for LCEQ and EMQ respectively which shows that both instruments were reliable. Mean, standard deviation and Peason product moment correlation coefficient were used to answer the research questions while regression analysis was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. It was discovered that Local Control of education has a positive and significant correlation with Effective Management of post-basic schools in North-East, Nigeria. Findings of the study also revealed the existence of a positive and significant relationship between Curriculum/policy Adaptation and Effective Management of post-basic schools in North-East, Nigeria. The study concluded that local control of education has a positive and significant correlation with Effective Management of post-basic schools in North-East, Nigeria. Increased local control and curriculum/policy adaptation engender effective management of post-basics schools. It was recommended that the Federal Ministry of Education should ensure more participation of stakeholders at the Local level in Education Policy formulation processes for the purpose of enhancing the effectiveness of education management. It was also recommended that Federal Ministry of Education should ensure that curriculum and education policies are formulated to allow for local adaptability while still retaining national standard.