ABSTRACT

This study was designed to investigate into the data management problems of educational administrators in Imo State Secondary Education Management Board (SEMB). The study employed a descriptive survey research design. The population comprised 8,801. A total of 881 respondents from both the Board Headquarter and Zonal offices were sampled for the study using multistage sampling technique which yielded 420 male administrative staff and 461 female respectively. It was equally categorized into junior and senior administrative staff which yielded 314 junior and 567 senior administrators. Four research questions and two null hypotheses guided the study. The instrument used for data collection was questionnaire. The instrument consisted of twenty-five (25) item questionnaire titled Data Management Problem Questionnaire (DMPQ).The instruments were analyzed using mean and standard deviation for the research questions while the null hypotheses were analyzed with t-test statistics at 0.05 level of significance. The results of the data analysis revealed that the major ways adopted by the staff of Secondary Education Management Board (SEMB) for data collection includes; research findings, or case study, public opinion, normal official process, school inspection, etc. Politics influenced data management in a number of ways like; faulty projections for educational planning, falsification of data in favour of government intention, etc. There was also the issues of unwritten government policy that influences Educational administrators to inflate statistical records; that inadequate facilities/ equipment such  as computers, computer diskette, flash disc, CD Rom, microfilms, microfiche as well as lack of training on the use of modern technologies like the internet creates serious problem to proper data management. Based on the above findings a number of recommendations were developed that; Educational  administrators should diversify their methods of generating data for planning; issues of data management should be separated from politics, policies of data management should be maintained by all the department and units in the Board to avoid irregularities being perpetrated, enough facilities and equipment should be provided for effective data management and in-service training on the modern technologies like internet as well as qualified personnel to handle data related matters especially at  the statistics unit of the Secondary Education  Management  Board to  ensure professional growth should be maintained.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

          The bedrock of any nation’s educational development is the data management. Data as a concept in this study are simply referred to as statistics. According to Durosaro (2008) data are numerical measures of phenomenon and they are used in the process of scientific decision-making. The planning and management of any nation’s educational system depends greatly on the quality of data collection, analysis, and storage. However, management as another unit of this research study has been described in a variety of ways.

A definition of management according to Pierce and Dunham (1990) is a process that is used to accomplish organizational goals, that is, a process that is used to achieve what an organization wants to achieve. An organization here could be a business, a school, a city, a group of volunteers, or any governmental entity. However, organizations such as educational institutions, churches, including profit and non-profit making ones require effective data management in order to function properly.  According to Thierauf in Agbo (2006) management is the process of allocating an organizational input (human and material resources) by planning, organizing, directing and controlling with the purpose of producing outputs (goods and services) desired by its customers so that organizational objectives are accomplished. But from the view of Peretomode in Ogbonnaya (2004) management as the social process involve a sequence of coordinated events; planning, organizing, coordinating and controlling or leading in order to use available resources to achieve a desired outcome in the fastest and most efficient way.

The importance of management to any organization cannot be over emphasized. It is with an efficient management that an organization can plan, organize staff, control, direct and coordinate its activities to achieve predetermined goals. This will bring the researcher to the concept of data management as a key issue in this study. Data management as seen by Olubor (2003) is a key for running any organization including education. Educational administrators at different levels of the organization, who have the major functions of planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling, depend basically on the type of information supplied to them, its authenticity, richness, and quality of the information, timelessness and speed of the information (Durosano, 2008).

        According to Ottih in Agbo (2006) data management is an organized mechanism consisting of both physical and conception components which work together to collect or acquire information, process the information, store and retrieve the resultant information for dissemination to administrators who need them for decision-making. Hence, data management of educational administrators generally, involved data collection, processing, storage, retrieval and utilization in order to enhance the attainment of the goals of education.