COMPLETE SCHOOL PROJECT TOPICS & MATERIALS :
CHAPTERS: Chapter 1-5 | DOC FORMAT: MS WORD/PDF | PRICE: ₦5,000

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1       Background of the study

The development of any nation depends on the quality of its education and so conscious efforts are usually made to ensure educational quality at every level. One of the greatest concerns of Nigerians has been the issue of standard and quality of the educational system. This explains why uniform educational standard in the Federal Republic of Nigeria (2004) was established and the various measures made by the federal government to ensure quality in the educational system. The establishment of specific bodies to control quality in the various levels of education is a clear indication of the commitment of the federal government to assure quality. Some of these bodies include: The National Primary Education Commission (NPEC), The National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) and the National Universities Commission (NUC). Therefore, effective administration of secondary school may be determined by total quality management.

Staff Personnel Management is a management philosophy and practice that aims at harnessing the human and material resources of any organization in the most effective way to achieve their organizational objectives. More recently, educational administrators have recognized the potentials of Quality Management as applied to educational organizations in the sense that Quality Management is the cultivation and practice of quality in every person’s tasks and activities through which the school system focuses on continuous improvement of all operations or functions in the process of work. Many institutions are conducting organizational development programmes like, seminars, workshops, conferences to enhance quality awareness and change the attitude of their employees towards quality management.

Quality Management emphasizes teacher competence, creativity, commitment, teamwork, students’ satisfaction and how educational administrators are expected to lead in order to realize the full potentials of all personnel in the educational organization (Okorie and Uche, 2004). If educational administrators could realize that, failure in education is a problem and a waste to the nation, quality management may be regarded as an ideal process for making a change in the education system (Gertsen, 2001). In today’s economy; quality has become a high priority and is at the top of most agenda. Improving quality is probably one of the most important tasks any organization may be facing, whether private or public. Educational institutions are not foreign to this reality; on the contrary, they have also recognized the need to pursue this quest for quality and to deliver it to pupils and students alike. When talking about sources of quality education the following can be listed teacher’s commitment, effective leadership, adequate resources and the latest technology applied, an appropriate curriculum, excellent examination results and the support of parents, just to mention a few (Sallis,2002). For the last 20 years, different economic circumstances have pushed education systems in many countries towards a system of privatization, transforming education into a new market and adapting education to the current demands of labour markets (Hirtt, 2004), including application of quality management in school administration. It is therefore, not strange to talk of application of quality management in secondary school administration in Ikono LGA of Akwa Ibom State and how this staff personnel management affects teacher’s productivity.

Teamwork can be defined as activities of small groups of interdependent individuals that take responsibility for their organizational outcomes (Wineman and Serrato, 1998). Noted that teams are spreading rapidly in organizations like other quality-improvement practices. The advantages of successful teams and teamwork are considerable. Teamwork practices place overall accountability for quality on the team, thus alleviating the potential for individual blame, and allowing greater sharing of information and cooperation within the work group to improve its functions continuously (Coyle-Shapiro, 1995). Teams and teamwork can be used to minimize the duplication of effort. Further, working in teams can be instrumental in teachers developing comprehensive and in-depth views of organizational issues and situations through the pooling of knowledge. Positive synergy resulting from good teamwork can be an important ingredient in maximizing the contributions of individual staff members (Murphy and Herberling, 2005). It is believed that well-implemented teamwork will contribute to success. In the application of teamwork, members must be cognizant of the teams’ overall objectives rather than just being responsible for their own tasks and they must understand how their tasks are interdependent with others (Hackman and Wageman, 2005). This knowledge and awareness will give them a broader view of organizational issues and how they and their team fit in. Principals that apply teamwork involves their members in a well-designed team context, lead individuals to be more involved in their work, enable them to generate more constructive ideas and suggestions, and be more supportive of their teammates. They involve in doing the things that are required for an organizational program to be successful.

Principals that build an effective quality management culture extend teamwork and make it penetrate throughout the school and use in a wide range of decision-making and problem-solving situations. Quality improvement depends on hard work, which is best achieved through teamwork. The teams have some important functions which include: being accountable for the quality of learning; being responsible for making quality improvements in their area of responsibility; being a vehicle for monitoring, evaluating and improving quality; being a means of information to management on the changes necessary to improve provision. Application of teamwork can include  designed training program that prepares individual to work effectively in a team environment, efficiently employ team productivity techniques such as team goal setting and team problem solving, and develop interpersonal skills and conflict management techniques necessary for teams to function well (Cohen and Bailey, 1997). Dimitriades, (2000) observed that the concept of teams and teamwork is of central importance to quality management in schools, teams can be established to be responsible for effective communication in school administration. Principals are expected to encourage the teachers to work in team to promote continuous improvement and effective communication.

.

1.2       Statement of problem

The desire for better quality education is generally shared in Nigeria as in many other countries. Though quality Education is the responsibility of all the stakeholders, especially the school administrators that play some key roles in the quality assurance process. One of the   challenges that face the education system has always been to ensure that the quality of teaching and learning are maintained as well as administration. Personnel management is interested in ensuring that the satisfaction of need of students is achieved through equitable access to appropriate teaching and learning for life-skills programmes, achieving a 50 per cent improvement in every level  of education, improving all aspects of quality and ensuring excellence at all levels of education which the federal government  is fully committed to , by establishing specific bodies like the National Primary Education Commission (NPEC), The National Board for Technical Education

(NBTE), the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) and the National Universities Commission (NUC) just to ensure quality in the Education system. In spite of all these, it is observed that Secondary schools in Ikono LGA over the years has been suffering due to inadequate facilities for effective teaching and learning, lack of maintenance of existing ones, lack of commitment by principals, lack of teamwork, poor communication method, poor management, lack of adequate funding, no continuous improvement, poor performance of students in SSCE Exams which have put some parents on high jump of registering their wards in other states for  excellent results  and many more.  Applying personnel management attributes in the education context creates value for educational institutions, principals, teachers, and even students. Therefore, this study intends to appraise the impact of staff personnel management on teachers’ productivity in secondary schools in Ikono local government area of Akwa Ibom State.