TABLE
OF CONTENTS
Title
Page i
Certification ii
Dedication iii
Acknowledgements iv
Table
of contents vi
List
of Tables ix
Abstract x
CHAPTER ONE:
INTRODUCTION
Background
to the Study 1
Statement of the Problem 5
Purpose
of the Study 7
Research
Question 7
Research
Hypotheses 8
Significance
of the study 9
Operational Definition of Terms 9
Scope and Delimitation of the Study 10
CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF
RELATED LITERATURE
Concept of
Personnel 11
Concept of
Management 16
Concept of Personnel Management 24
Concept of Personnel Management Skills 28
School Management and payment of staff of salary 32
School Management and Staff Professional Development 38
Summary of Literature Reviewed 44
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH
METHODOLOGY
Research Design 48
Population
of the Study 49
Sample and Sampling Procedure 49
Research instrument 50
Validity of the Instrument 50
Reliability of the Instrument 50
Procedures for Data collection 51
Method of Data Analysis 52
CHAPTER FOUR: DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
Data Analysis 53
Test of Hypotheses 55
Summary of findings 58
CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Discussion of Findings 59
Conclusion 60
Recommendations 61
REFERENCES 63
APPENDIX 67
ABSTRACT
This study investigated the teachers’ assessment of personnel management skills by school owners in Ilorin West, Kwara State.
Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study and multi-stage sampling method which involved proportionate, stratified and random sampling techniques was adopted to draw a total of 100 respondents that participated in the study. Teaching methods adopted by basic science teachers and the implication Questionnaire was used to collect data for the study. The Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) of inferential statistics were used to test the null hypotheses postulated for the study at 0.05 alpha level while, frequency count and percentages were used to compute the demographic data collected.
The findings of the study revealed that There is a significant relationship between teachers’ assessment and personnel management skills by school owners in Ilorin West, Kwara State. There is a significant difference between the financial entitlements and the personnel management skills among private school owners in Ifako Ijaye Local Government Area of Lagos State. There is a significant difference between the Professional development and the personnel management skills among private school owners in Ifako Ijaye Local Government Area of Lagos State. There is a significant difference between the Staff Welfare and the personnel management skills among private school owners in Ifako Ijaye Local Government Area of Lagos State.
Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that there should be seminar giving to the teachers on important of assessment and personnel management skills by school owners in Ilorin West, Kwara State. There should be seminar giving to the administration on the effects of financial entitlements and the personnel management skills among private school owners in Ifako Ijaye Local Government Area of Lagos State. There should be seminar giving to the administration on the effects of Professional development and the personnel management skills among private school owners in Ifako Ijaye Local Government Area of Lagos State. There should be seminar giving to the administration on the effects of Staff Welfare and the personnel management skills among private school owners in Ifako Ijaye Local Government Area of Lagos State.
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
Background
to the study
Personnel management is one of the most important
and challenging functions of any organization because it constitutes the
ultimate basis for the creation and utilization of the wealth of a nation.
Okafor and Udu (2008) perceive management as a set of activities (planning,
decision making, organizing, leading and controlling) directed at an
organization’s resources (human, financial and physical) with the aim of
achieving organizational goals in an efficient and effective manner. Personnel
management is the acquisition of personnel or human resources and co-ordination
of their performance within the organization. Riches and Morgan in Uche (2009)
explain that human resource management in any organization (education or
otherwise) is part of the process of management in general that focuses on the
people aspect of management, ensuring that the objective of the organization is
met. In order words, personnel management is the effective utilization of
people at work to achieve the aims and objectives of the organization.
It
is in line with the above assertion that Peretomode (2004) 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 achieve its set goals and
objectives. Nwachukwu (2000), argues that for an organization to attain its
desired objectives, it must seek to obtain 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.
The management of educational institutions is faced
with not only the complexities of characters and behaviour of the staff, but
also with those of the students and parents (Okoro, 2006). This means that the
way and manner these chains of human elements are managed could affect the
success of educational institutions. Developing therefore, a functional
structure that accommodates the diverse needs of all the groups in the
educational system remains a challenge to the management in the education
sector.
As is the case in other fields of human endeavours,
the educational sector depends on active, efficient, effective and reliable
workforce to achieve success. To achieve the desired success, the
administrators in the Nursery / Primary school system are saddled with the
responsibility of directing, guiding and co-ordinating staff and students
appropriately to achieve excellent performance. Agreeing with this, Peretomode
(2004), argues that the job of managing the personnel is one of the crucial
functions of educational administrators, because of the existing correlation
between effective management and achievement of educational goals and
objectives.
Personnel
management is also called human resource management. Human resources according
to Nwachukwu (2000), consists of all the individuals engaged in any of the
organizational activities whose potentials such as talent and abilities are
combined and utilized with other resources (financial and physical) to procure
goods and services. Human resource management comprises planning, forecasting,
organizing, controlling and co-ordinating specific activities like recruitment,
selection, training, development, motivation, remuneration, and assessment and
employee relations. These activities need to be handled through a systematic
and structural approach to achieve organizational goals, and at the same time
ensuring delivery of satisfactory services to the general private and the
workers.
The importance of personnel management towards the
achievement of educational goals cannot be over-emphasized. According to
Amstrong (2005), it helps in identifying current and future human resource
requirements to avoid shortages of manpower. Its importance is also seen in the
areas of ensuring that justice, equity and fair-play are maintained when
dealing with staff in the organization; ensuring that organizational goals are
achieved through team work and co-operative efforts; ensuring that employees’
needs are recognized in the organizational goals. Personnel management equally
helps in assisting personnel in building up a good career, and in selecting and
replacing the staff based on laid down principles to avoid favouritism that may
mar the realization of goals. This goes
to say that personnel management covers both organizational growth and
provides conducive environment for employee development (Onah, 2008).
An effective and efficient personnel management
makes for a good school organization that in itself brings academic success.
School organization is regarded as good and productive if it is characterized
with good personnel management. Such management is recognized by the
competency, honesty, loyalty, inspirational stride and co-operation of the
staff. Adiotiome and Ekwevugbe (2005) noted that parents and some stakeholders
believe that the quality of instruction in the private Nursery / Primary
schools is higher than that of the private schools because of proper management
of personnel in the private schools. Private schools are those schools owned by
individuals or organization while private schools are those owned by the
government. Gobir (2005) asserts that privateNursery / Primary schools have
qualified and experienced staff but the problem of poor performance should be
blamed on poor personnel management. This is in line with the observation of
the former president of Nigeria Olusegun Obasanjo who, while launching the
Universal Basic Education (UBE) programme in 200 9, observed that the falling
standard of education can be blamed on poor management.
Poor management of staff in the Nursery / Primary
school system has been identified as the major cause of anti-social behaviour
such as the increasing cases of examination malpractice, truancy, bullying,
cultism, extortion and other social delinquencies observed among staff and
students. In this period of rapid expansion in the number of schools and
student’s enrolment, Ogba (2011) asserts that the job of managing the human
elements of the organization is usually very tasking. Under such environment,
the management of each educational institution requires both knowledge and
application of personnel management principles and skills. The key management
task becomes how to get staff to comprehensively carry out the skill
development needs of students through the use of the academic curricula.
Identification of the skills and education needs of
students is as important as assigning specific teaching tasks towards
addressing such issues like examination malpractice and cultism. Although the
Federal Reprivate of Nigeria (FRN, 2004) is very specific about the needed
areas of skill development, enhancing effective personnel management strategies
that address students’ needs remains a difficult task in most educational
institutions. The Federal Reprivate of Nigeria (2004) indentified the major
skills required in the Nursery / Primary level of education to include:
equipping the students with the skills that will lead them to scientific
growth, technological development, social emancipation, artistic mastery that
will lead them to self reliance and respect the views of others and acquisition
of vocational knowledge. The above skills can only be achieved through
effective and efficient personnel management.
Nursery / Primary education is a very crucial level
of education. It is a bridge between Nursery / Primary and tertiary levels of
education. Nursery / Primary education level provides the general training
necessary for individuals to acquire skills necessary to programme themselves
for future career challenges. According to Ogba (2011), the need to bridge
educational gaps arising from Nursery / Primary education and preparing
students for specialization in different fields of life, place fresh demands on
the managers of Nursery / Primary school level of education. This is because
the number and structure of the workforce expand at this level and there exist
some degree of academic independence among teachers and other staff.
The importance of personnel management in Nursery /
Primary schools has remained a great concern to parents, managers of education,
researchers, students and consumers of the products of education because of the
quality of administration, management and achievement of set goals that is
declining in education and its attendant student delinquent behavior. It must
be noted that the management of schools in Nigeria before the Nigerian civil war
was in the hands of the Missions and private individuals or organizations.
Omeje (2006) observed that personnel management skills in educational institutions in Nigeria before
and after the war were characterized by general poor conditions of service for
teachers in the then Mission and privately owned Nursery / Primary and Nursery
/ Primary schools.
According to the Lagos State Nursery / Primary
Education Management Board Reversed Personnel management Manual (2010),
Personnel management functions of the Nursery / Primary Education Management
Boards in the Lagos States of Nigeria involve recruitment of staff, through
proper advertisement that will not be less than six weeks and selection of
qualified candidates for employment, orientation of newly employed staff by way
of in-service training, provision of welfare schemes, assessment , promotion
and discipline of staff. When recruitment has been effected, the next function
is orientation.
Orientation is designed to help newly employed staff
become familiar with the environment. Oboegbulem (2004) stated that orientation
helps new staff have good impression on the work environment, the nature of the
community in which they will work, and the type of colleagues they are going to
work with. In-service training is a personnel management function which is
essential for professional growth and to keep abreast with changes in teaching
techniques and methods which are not static. Onu (2012) described in-service
training as a consciously designed programme to improve the professional growth
of employees for the achievement of organizational goals. Welfare of staff is
also an important personnel management function. It deals with conditions of
service and provision of social amenities at work place. Agu (2009) maintained
that welfare of staff include such issues like adequate and prompt payment of
salaries and allowances, grant of study leave, grant of maternity leave and
sick leave, among others. Assessment of
staff is also a personnel management function. Assessment means the assessment of the worth or value of
an undertaking. It is judgment of value performance. Adeyemi (2009) viewed
performance assessment as a systematic
and formal assessment of both employers and employees, made in a prescribed and
uniform manner at a specified time to identify both individual and group
weaknesses and strengths so that weaknesses can be converted into strength. It
is the assessment of individual task performance based on some set standards.
Promotion is another important aspect of personnel
management; it elevates staff to the next level. According to Adeyemi,
promotion is the elevation of someone’s status as a result of having satisfied
the required conditions. Waziri (2014) perceives staff promotion as the
positive progression of staff in rank or position in recognition of their
contributions towards the growth of their institution or establishment. When
staff get promoted, they are motivated to work harder for the advancement of
their establishments. As a result of
these issues, it has become necessary to ascertain the extent to which the
Personnel Management skill have influence on the school administration in Lagos
State.
Balansikat
and Gerhard (2005), say that globally, the majority of school leaders were not
trained as school leaders but they assume offices because of their experience.
In United Kingdom and Switzerland, future and serving head teachers are trained
in management of schools, also specific management and or certification is
required in countries like Slovenia, Estovenia and Catelonia. Performing head
teachers are trained in different institutions and in varying curriculum. The
authors however, advocate for a higher degree of autonomy, coupled with
curriculum of: distributed management, supporting, evaluating and developing
teacher quality, goal setting, assessment and accountability, strategic finance
and human resource management, and networking with other institutions
(Balansikat &Gerhard, 2005).
According
to Stoner (2004), management is the ability to use different forms of power to
influence followers in a number of ways to accomplish organizational
objectives. Ade (2003), defined management as a social influence process in
which the leader seeks the voluntary participation of subordinated in an effort
to reach organizational objectives.
Formal institutions including Nursery / Primary
schools are established to impart knowledge, skills, habits, values and
attitudes among the learners. These institutions are led by head teachers who
are expected to employ management functions to achieve the organizational
goals. Examples of these functions are planning and policy making (Nir, 2003);
organization, motivation, and directing (Keegam, 2003); coordination and
budgeting (Fapojuwo 2002); pe
