INTRODUCTION
- Background to the Study
Nigeria is the most populous black nation inthe world, It is located in West Africa, bordered byRepublic of Benin on the west, Niger Republic in thenorth, northeast by Chad and east byCameroon. Nigeria is blessed with a lot of ethnic group;Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo being the mostrecognized. a present, the structure of Nigeria’s formal educational system is made up of pre-primary, basic education, senior secondary and tertiary education.. the a year uninterrupted school comprised of 6 year primary and 3years junior secondary school tagged the universal basic education (U.B.E.)which replaced UniversalPrimary Education (U.P.E.) which had been in operation since 1976. This is followed by 3 years senior secondary school and 4 years of higher education which may be in the college of education, polytechnics. Monotechnics or universities.
History of Education in Nigeria Prior to the arrival of western education in Nigeria, education has been informal education majorly from the family and immediate society, where children are taught about culture, social activities and work. These educational activities made up for majority of what the upcoming ones learn. The entrance of the Europeans into Nigeria, brought along European western Education in the 1840s. In the western part of the country western education was encouraged by the Missionaries. The Northern part of Nigeria, majorly populated by Muslims, who shun western education for fear of being converted to Christianity for Islamic school. That focused primarily on Islamic and Arabic education. secondary school were initially established by Christian missions before the colonial Government established some for northern Muslims prior to Nigeria’s independence, only two post-secondary institutions were available; yaba Higher College (Now Yaba College of Technology founded in 1934) and the University of Ibadan, founded in 1948. Post-Independence brought about the major development of education in Nigeria, within crease in the number of primary, secondary schools, teachers college and Polytechnics and Universities. The cost of Tertiary education is constantly on the increase and the educational system is in need of improvement and innovation to move it forward from the current state.
The leadership roles of the principal as the chief executive in the school is enormous. He plays a key role in the success and failure of the organization. He is obliged to be an effective head to the able to achieve the objectives.
A leadership strategies is said to be effective if it facilitates accomplishment of the organization objective with minimum unanticipated cost or consequence. Therefore, for school as an organization to survive and more importantly to grow, the need then arises for the management to face questions of how the organization will work to see that these objectives are achieved.
One important way by which an organization can achieve these objectives is to address the issue of managing people in the organization coupled with coordinating,directing, commanding and controlling their efforts which is the major problem facing most organizations today. Consequently, the problem of personnel management Is very important, particularly with the purpose of adopting an appropriate system of coordinating relationship between men and materials resources. They should be the primary concern of any organization be it profit oriented, social service, charitable, or even school as an organization. in line with this salami (2002)describe education as “the theory and practice of the organization and administration of the existing educational establishment and system as well as process of seeing to it that the policy, the principals methods for achieving this are fully carried out.. In his own research work, Adama (2000) observes that human resources are the greatest assets of an organization. In educational setting, the teachers are regarded as the greatest assets. This is because the teacher determines what goes on, in the classroom.
Abiri (2005) emphasized that, Education has been as a vital tool that brings about rapid development to any nation. To this end, smooth running of the school system calls for effective leadership.
Maintained that no matter what is done in educational matter what educational policy is may not work unless teacher determine, to a very large extent, what happens in the classroom. Such a great demand for teaching in the school level opens the need for effective management practice.
More often than not one hears of growing poor performance of student in our schools, Educational management expert such as, Ogunsaju (2000) observed that the poor performance of students can be attributed to the condition of service of teaching as a consequence of bad personnel management practice employed by the government and the school principal.
Realizing importance of manpower in organizations.Ogundipe (2002) stressed that, what determines the success of an organization does not only include the necessary tools, materials and equipment but also the wider organization’, in other words, organization of education should include the co-ordination of relationship between education and men; man in the society, his behavior, ideas and matter affecting him, the institutions and how education has contributed to help the society to grow.
In his explanation on human behaviors to work, Ogundipe (2000) stressed further that variety of experience, skills and knowledge are put together by people in a job which provides, hopeful, most of the organizational resources for carrying out the work.
The teacher therefore requires adequate knowledge of fact and morale to enable him function effectively as interpreter of intent and transmitter of knowledge that guarantees individual development and substance of societal virtue and culture.
Hence, their motivation is imperative in a particular education setting at a point in time.
The same view was shares by Ogunyinka (2008) if the students perform well in the school the society would view the school as being effective the school principals make various democracy makes various decision in the school which their follower’s that is students teaching and non-teaching staff have a follow. The autocratic strategies of decision making may bring about unnecessary conflicts as consultation is not sought by the administrator from any of his follower’s.
Decisions are solely arrived at by the principals. This is diametrically opposed to the principal “two good heads are better than one.”
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
In Nigeria, lack of job satisfaction characterizes the life of many, employees. In most organizations this is evident in the poor attitude of many to work among whom teachers are chief. Hence, we witness great loss in the organizations as a result of poor services, high labour turn-over, psychological withdrawal, disloyalty.
Abdulkareem, A.Y (2002), realizing the significance of democratic principles as against the adverse effect of autocratic principal in decision making. There is the need for a systematics and pragmatic search into the influence of principal’s decision making strategies on teacher’s effectiveness among secondary school teachers in Ijumu. It is generally agreed that, to build a strong, sound and everlasting house for a living, the foundation has to be properly laid. Observation shows that, some principals make irrational decision, when some are subtle in their decision making process.
This research would therefore investigate the influence of principal’s decision making whether it has made or not the smooth running of secondary schools, particularly teacher’s effectiveness
1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The study intent to answer the following question.
i. what are the major decision making strategies common to principals of secondary schools in Ijumu local government area of kogi state?
ii. What is the level principal decision making strategies in secondary schools of Ijuma local government area, kogi state?
iii. What is the level of teacher’s job performance in secondary school of Ijumu local government area, kogi state?
1.4 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES
i. Main hypothesis principal’s decision making strategies have no significant influence on teacher effectiveness in secondary schools.
ii. Operational hypothesis principal autocratic decision making strategies have no significant influence on teacher’s effectiveness in secondary schools
iii. Principals democratic decision making strategies have no significant influence on teacher’s effectiveness in secondary schools.
iv. Principals laissez- faire decision making strategies have no significant influence on teacher effectiveness in secondary schools.
