ABSTRACT
This study investigated the Capacity Building Skills of Principal for Quality Assurance in Public Secondary Schools in South-Eastern States of Nigeria. Five research questions and five null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The research design adopted for the study was descriptive survey research design; the population is 1244. The sample size of the study consisted of 609 principals. The selection of the sample was done state by state using 49% of principals in each of the states. The instrument used for data collection was a researcher-developed questionnaire titled Capacity Building Skills of Principals for Quality Assurance in Public Secondary Schools in South-Eastern States of Nigeria. The instrument was face validated by three experts in the department of Educational Foundations and in Measurement and Evaluation, all from Faculty of Education University of Nigeria Nsukka. The eighty valid items were subjected to internal consistency through Cronbach Alpha Method and the results were0.78, 0.78, 0.84, 0.91, and 0.83 respectively for the needs possessed by the principals; and 0.86, 0.82, 0.75, 0.86, and 0.81 for the needsthey required. The needs in this work are skills from training; the overall reliability coefficient of 0.83 and 0.82 respectively for skills possessed and skills required were obtained. The data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer research questions 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Real limit of number was used to interpret the research questions while t-test statistics was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significant.The findings of the study revealed that principals in public secondary schools in South-Eastern States of Nigeria slightly possessed instructional leadership skills and highly required the skills as one of their needs for quality assurance inschools. It revealed that; they slightly possessed personnel management skills and averagely required the skills, slightly possessed financial management skills and highly required the skills for quality assurance in schools. The findings therefore showed that both the male and female principals are of the same opinion on instructional leadership skills possessed and of different opinion on instructional leadership skills they required for quality assurance in schools. Recommendations were also made among which was government should make leadership management training available and more relevance to the principals; and that the secondary school principals should make use of more of the training given to them on those skills for quality assurance in schools.
