MECHANISMS FOR EFFECTIVE PLANNING AND ORGANIZATION OF RESOURCES IN SECONDARY SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION SA’ADATU BELLO
Department of Educational Foundations
Federal College of Education, Yola
ABSTRACT:
The paper identified two challenges to the management of secondary schools in the Northern Senatorial Zone of Adamawa State. It then examined the strategies for
the effective management of the schools. Two purposes of the study were outlined. Two research questions were formulated to guide the study. The area of the study was the
Northern Senatorial Zone of Adamawa. The Zone comprised 5 Local Government Areas, namely, Mubi North, Mubi South, Maiha, Michika and Madagali. A structured
questionnaire, developed by the researcher and validated by 3 experts in educational management, was pilot tested on 22 respondents using the test re-test method of
estimating reliability. The two tests were separated by a space of 2 weeks. The two results were correlated and the Pearson r was 0.87. The instrument was then administered on a sample of 474 respondents, made up of 302 teachers and 172 administrators. The data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation. Findings revealed that yearly plan of staff needs, term plan for students’ feeding and term plan for materials were
among the 13 strategies for effective planning of school activities. The findings showed that organizing materials into buildings, laboratories and workshops, organizing human
beings into schools, committees and classes; and organizing ideas and principles into curricular activities, and time schedules are effective organizing strategies in secondary
school management. The study however, did not consider that publicising the school was necessarily an effective strategy for secondary school management. To enhance school
administrators’ management skills, the study recommended among others, that school administrators need to undertake refresher courses so as to update their knowledge and
skills; government needs to provide a conducive school environment so that administrators can functionally utilize their knowledge and skills, and teachers must give maximum support to administrators in their effort to provide effective leadership in the
schools.