ABSTRACT
The major purpose of this study was to investigate educational administrators’ personnel management practices and teachers’ job performance in Eket Local Government Area. Four research questions and four null hypotheses were formulated. The study adopted expo-facto design and 72 students and 48 teachers out of 16, 205 students and 225 teachers were randomly selected to constitute the population of the study. Two researcher instruments namely Educational Administrators Personnel Management Practices Questionnaire (EAPMPQ) and Teachers Job Performance Questionnaire (TJPQ) were used to gather the required data for this study. The instruments were validated by three validates and an R and R2- value of simple linear regression analysis was used for answering research questions while F-ratio of simple linear regression was used for testing the hypotheses. All the hypotheses formulated were tested at. 05 level of significance. In order to take decision as regard research question, any R-value in the extent scale of prediction that fell between 0.10 – 0.39 was regarded as low prediction , 0.40 – 0.59 moderate prediction and 0.60 – 0.99 high prediction. For the hypotheses, whenever the calculated F-value was greater than the critical F-value, the null hypotheses was rejected, otherwise accepted.The analyzed data culminated in the following findings among others: There is a significant influence in performance appraisal and teachers’ job performance in secondary schools in Eket Local Government Area. There is a significant influence in instructional supervision and teachers’ job performance in secondary schools in Eket Local Government Area. Based on these findings it was recommended among others that staff appraisal should be carried out on a quarterly basis so that the strengths and weaknesses discovered in the process can be corrected and also suggest possible ways of improving teachers professional weaknesses.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
The world is no longer what it used to be. It is changing faster and the world of economics, business and academic is changing with it. All organizational change and success rest on its employees. There is growing universal awareness that employees’ motivation is a prerequisite for the survival of any organization, be it in the public or private sector of the economy. Thus management is constantly confronted with the task of having to diagnose the various needs of the workers so as to merge them into the organizational needs.
The outset of globalization and technology has promoted Human Resource Management (HRM) to re-define its strategies to make it more responsible to the changing times. In human resource management, there is need to consider human capital. Human capital theory suggests that “individuals and society derive economic benefits from investments in people” (Zula and Chermack, 2007).
Human Resource Management was then labeled as personnel management in the past(Mello, 2006). It was then limited to just managing personnel, dealing with clerical and administrative tasks, like recruitment, filing and compensation. But now, aside from these tasks, human resources management has branched out in many different sub-fields such as staffing, training, performance management, compensation and labour relations (Mello, 2006).
Personnel management is one of the most important and challenging functions of the organization because it constitutes the ultimate basis for the creation and utilization of the wealth of a nation. Personnel management refers to the aspect of personnel management which is primarily concerned with the workforce. In the education enterprise, “personnel management is “more technically and realistically categorized under two or more functional areas, including: staff personnel management; and student personnel management (Nwankwo,2004).
Educational administration is the process of bringing men and materials together for effective and functional teaching and learning. The administrator fulfils such demands by implementing policies linked to organizing, allocating harnessing human and material resources within the school system in order to achieve the stated objectives. The fundamental goal of managing the educational system effectively is to make the students relevant to the country and conform to the values and norms of the society. Anuna (2004) defined school educational administration as a process primarily concerned with creating, maintaining and coordinating the resources and energy within an educational institution for the purpose of achieving predetermined goals. Also educational administration is the management of available resources for the achievement of educational objectives.
In line with the above, Peretomode (2012) asserted that, personnel management acts as the wheel of progress in the realization of educational goals and objectives. It means that without an effective personnel management, an organization may find it difficult to attain its set goals and objectives, it must seek to gain the co-operation of the personnel working under it. It is clear that personnel management is challenging in every organization but far more challenging in educational institutions. This is because most of the activities in education deal with human beings. Management of educational institutions is faced with not only the complexities of characters and behaviours of staff, but also with students.
Organizations, whether profit-oriented or service oriented are designed to work towards achievement of set-goals. According to(Koko, 2005) as workers (teachers) consciously contribute towards goals of the organization, they also have personal or group goals they expect to satisfy. Aide (2007) stated that of all tools in management (men, machine, material, money and market), without any iota of doubt, the most important is men. Man is the only animate instrument that is capable of achieving the other 4M’s or making them moribund and hence affect positively or negatively the purpose of a system. Aja-Okorie (2014) perceived personnel management as an important management function concerned with obtaining, developing and motivating the human resources required by an organization to achieve its objectives.
Managing teachers is that part of school management function which is concerned with teachers at work and their relationship within the educational enterprise. It seeks to bring together and develop into an effective educational organization, men and women who make up the teaching workforce, enabling each to make his/her own best contribution to its success. Management of teaching workforce involves a number of strategies that begins and maintain activities toward the achievement of personal and organizational goals. Omebe (2001) was of the view that well managed teachers will always look for better ways to do their teaching job. They are more quality oriented and more productive.
Educational administrators perform very important roles in the enhancement of teaching and learning process. They procure and manage funds, provide and maintain staff and students, physical, facilities as well as equipment. It is a known fact that no educational institution can achieve its objectives without good care of competent and dedicated teachers as well as educational administrators. Hence, education is an enterprise in which both government and individuals invest their resources. The motive or objective in educational investment can only be realized if the resources invested are adequately utilized,
Additionally, prompt application of personnel management technique, has an important and influential bearing on the job performance of teachers. Therefore, acquiring teacher’s services, developing their skills, motivating them to high levels of job performance and ensuring that they continue to maintain their commitment to the organization are essential to achieving school organizational goals.
Job performance is a measure of how workers effectively combine and use resources in order to accomplish specific and desirable result of the organization (Aliyu and Palwasha, 2010). In the researcher’s opinion, teachers’ job performance is the ability of the teacher to achieve its set goals in his assigned responsibility within the educational institution. Teachers’ job performance could be described as the duties performed by a teacher or teachers at a particular period in the school system in achieving educational goals. Job performance takes into cognizance both the quality and quantity of the results achieved by teachers.
Job performance of employees remains an issue of great concern to many organizations including the school. Donnely (2002) rightly explained that job performance is concerned with the overall effectiveness and efficiency of getting things done. It gives an overview of how an organization is fairing. The concept of job performance can be viewed from many perspectives like economic, industry and management. Mali (2005) looked at job performance as reaching the peak of performance with the least expenditure on resources. Job performance therefore is a critical factor in socio-economic development as it justifies huge expenditure by the organization and has many other salutary effects.
According to Nwachukwu (2006), job performance “is the output, resulting from a given resources input at a given time” Benton (2002) projected the following benefits of an effective job performance.
1. Strengthening the general economic foundation of workers.
2. Improvement in working and living conditions.
3. Higher earnings.
4. Increased output or services at less resource.
Since it can be deduced that job performance entail doing more with less resources, making more from what you have rather smarter than harder, it is imperative to examine the various means of encouraging job performance in our immediate society. For instance, Nwachukwu (2006) suggested that for a teacher to improve his job performance, he must possess a natural ability and the will-power to be involved in productive ventures. Nwachukwu believed that, acquisition of skills, compensation, supervision, evaluation and managerial support must be present to encourage job performance of school teachers.
