Abstract
This study investigate the management of student personnel services in Nigerian federal and state universities. five research questions and four null hypotheses guided the study. A 76-item questionnaire was administered to 1320 respondents, comprising 120 senior administrative staff, and 1200 students drawn from 12 universities selected for the study. A student personnel services observation schedule was used for the on-the-spot assessment of the student personnel services that are observable. Real limit of numbers were used to interpret the results while the z-test statist6ices was used to test the null hypotheses. The study found that all the 20 student personnel services studied were available except financial assistance, even though most of them are of poor quality. Factors responsible for the poor quality of student personnel services include: increase in students enrolment without proportionate increase in student personnel services; poor funding of education, poor attention to student personnel services. The present quality of student personnel services affects students in many ways such as exposing students to hazards, causing lateness to lectures. Some strategies that could be adopted to improve on the management of student personnel services include: the government giving special grants to universities for the provision of student personnel services appealing to individuals and corporate bodies to help in the provision of student personnel services. Based on the findings, the researcher recommended that the education sector should be adequately funded, the private sector should be encouraged to participate actively in the provision of student personnel services, admission of students should be guided by the available student personnel services.
CHAPTHER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study
Universities are established to achieve a wide variety of goals. These include teaching and imparting knowledge, seeking and discovering truth, disseminating it research finding to all so that mankind may shed the shackles of ignorance and want, and developing manpower to induce change and progress in society. This informs the reason why both the government and the private sector commit a great deal of resources towards the achievement of these goals. Universities play major roles in national development especially in the development of high level manpower. However, in most cases the societal expectations in terms of goals are hardly met and part of the explanation is linked to the absence of adequate and conducive environment for effective leaning. The absence of these creates situations that constitute bottle necks to the achievement of goals and objectives of educational institution, the level not withstanding.
For the objectives of university education to be achieved, there should be adequate provision, proper allocation, and effective supervision of certain services for the students in order to ensure effective teaching and learning processes and all-round development of students. These services include student personnel services.
Student personnel services, according to Akuchie (1998), are those services and functions that complement classroom instruction for the total development of the individual. The services emphasize the intellectual, social, emotional, cultural and physical development of the individual and equally help to build the curriculum, improve methods of instruction, and develop programmes. Students personnel services are tools in guiding and directing students to improve their personal substance in the pursuit of their careers. The provision of these services is there fore men tot meet the different aspects of human development and adjustment (Francis, 2002).
The general objectives of student personnel services are to assist students to attain maximum self-realization, to assist students to become effective in their social environment, and to complement the academic programme of the institution. Specifically student personnel services seek to provide orientation for students to facilitate adjustment to campus life, perform individual inventory and testing to aid towards self-knowledge and self realization, perform individual and group counselling, provide placement and follow-up services, provide adequate assistance to students on finance, health, food, and housing, provide variety of co-curricular activities, approve and monitor activities of recognized student organizations, implement students code of conduct and recommend the appropriate disciplinary action to the proper school authorities (Francis, 2002).
The National Universities Commission (NUC) (1996) identified student personnel services in universities to include students records, orientation, health services, cafeteria, hostels, financial aid, counselling services, library, classroom facilities, instructional materials, and municipal services. This is in line with Amaizu (1998) who enumerated student personnel services to include guidance and counselling services, catering services, supervision of students’ discipline, and social and emotional adjustment of students. Kalu (1997:1) identified student personnel services as “those non-academic duties concerned with pupils’ welfare in a school setting”. He further observed that pupils personnel services refer to those services in the school system that aim at trying to understand and help to solve students’ personal and social problems, and carter for their well being, solve their problems and improve their happiness. These are services that are highly personal and are related to the students’ proper functioning and maintenance. Okeke (2002) defined student personnel services as those special classroom supporting services outside the curricular offerings that impinge upon the maturation of the self of the students. It also enables students to develop love for school, participate actively in school activities, and stimulate regularity and punctuality in school attendance (Anukam, 2001)
Student personnel services aim at the training of the entire person to enable him or her not only to be able to read and write and calculate or to be proficient in a given job but also to enable him fit himself for living in a society. Student personnel services also aim at developing and training the total man intellectually, physically, emotionally and spiritually to enable the learner, on graduation, take his place in the society and contribute to its survival.
Adequate provision of student personnel services is very vital in any educational institution. Ogbonnaya (1997) explained that these services are vital to he meaningful operational apron of the school system as they contribute significantly to the day-to-day functioning of a school, particularly to learning effectiveness. Adesina and Ogunsaju in Onochie (1998), in their recognition of the need for student personnel services in universities, observed that for effective teaching and learning situations, physical facilities and educational goals should be viewed as being closely interwoven and interdependent. No matter the strength of manpower resources in the system, the educational process must require conducive physical environment and other facilities and equipment in order to function effectively and efficiently.
Student personnel services rendered to students play important roles in the students wholistic development. For instance, the guidance and counseling services assist students in making intelligent and informed decisions; careers and vocational services assist students in securing jobs on graduation. Halls of residence, apart from protecting students from the sun, rain, heat and cold, represent a learning environment which has a tremendous impact on the comfort, safety and performance of the students. Medical services offers a thorough medical examination of students upon entering school and pays attention to students who have defect and chronic disorders. It offers such services as health appraisal, health counseling, correction of defects, prevention and control of communicable diseases and emergency care. The municipal services such as water, road, and electricity ensure healthy living and comfort while libraries, lecture rooms, equipment and teaching aids are part of school environmental issues that determine the wealth of the school and the extent to which educational objectives are achieved.
The word management means getting things done through others. According to Mgbodile (2003), management is leadership which is aimed at influencing group activity towards goal achievement. It is the behaviour of the man in leadership position when he is carrying out the vital functions of administration-planning, organizing, directing or controlling, coordination and evaluating activities aimed at achieving the goals of the establishment.
Management is equally referred to as a group of people. This school of thought perceives management as a group or a team of individuals in an organization. People equally perceive management as a process demanding the performance of a specific function, that is, management as a profession (Ogbonnaya, 2003). Peretomode (1991) sees management as the social or interactional process involving sequences of coordinated events-planning, organizing, coordination and leading in order to use available resources to achieve a desired outcome in the fastest and most efficient way.
From the above definitions one can deduce that management is a social process which has goals to achieve, it involves planning, organizing, staffing, leadership, directing, controlling and coordination of the efforts of people towards the achievement of goals. It is also the guidance or direction of people towards organization goals or objectives.
Effective and efficient management of student personnel services in universities is not only important but necessary for the achievement of the desired educational goals of inculcating the right type of values, attitudes, skills, and development of mental and physical abilities as equipment for producing good quality citizens for Nigeria (Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2004).
The importance attached to student personnel services implies that they should not only be adequately provided but should also be well managed. Management of student personnel services refers to the provisions, supervision, maintenance and replacement of the facilities and services. The authorities of the universities are not only concerned with the planning and coordinating but also with the maintenance of student personnel services. The management of students personnel services therefore rests on the hand of the university managements which are in position to appreciate as well as administer a school on a productive manner so as to achieve the goals and objectives of the educational system (Omu, 2006).
Today the student personnel services in our university are not only appear to be inadequate but some of the existing ones are dilapidated, and constitute danger to the health of the students and the entire university communities. For instance, the hostel accommodation in the universities are unconducive and deplorable and this affect the academic performance of students and their all-round development (Akuchie, 1998). According to Mboto (2000), today cracked/decaying walls, sagging roofs, blown-off roofs, and bushy surroundings are common phenomenon in schools. Ogbonnaya and Ajagbonwu (1997) observed that this situation does not augur well for effective teaching and learning.
Many students miss lectures while looking for accommodation or while trying to trace their missing results either in the Department or at the Exams and Records. Some of them repeat an academic year or miss their batch of the National Youth Service due to the fact that records of result of exams they wrote and passed are missing (Nosiri and Nwagbo, 2007). The universities medical centers are always busy attending to students who are sick due to inadequate student personnel services. The picture suggests that student personnel services appear not only inadequate in our universities, but that the existing ones are poorly managed and poorly supervised
Okebukola (2003), while decrying the present state of student personnel services in Nigerian universities, observed that in 2001 academic year 390,077candidates were enrolled in the nations universities with only 11355 bed spaces available. This implies four students per bed space so that a room meant for four students would therefore take sixteen students if all the students were to be offered accommodation. NUC (1996) observed that three to four students officially live in a room meant for two and that rolled-up mattresses are stuffed into every imaginable space and that these mattresses are slept upon at night by unofficial residents commonly called squatters. In some universities students defecate by means of ‘fly over’ or shot put: fly over and shot put refer to a practice why where by students defecate inside polythene bags and throw it across the fence. This is because of the poor state of the toilets as they are being used by too many students.
Akuchie (1998) observed that most of the medical centers in the campuses are at best referred to as consulting clinics because of inadequate staff personnel, and non-availability of drugs, including common routine drugs. Equally water and power supply is epileptic in most of the universities as well as transportation of students and staff from out side and within the campuses. The buses and taxis are not enough and most of the universities do not permit commercial motorcycle (motor bike) to operate within the campuses and so the staff and students of Nigerian universities are stressed by poor transportation within the campuses (Akuchie, 1998).
Students activities and movement are not effectively monitored hence the universities, the cities they are located and their surrounding suburbs continually record incidents of cult activities, and murder. Equally students are known to have been involved in robbery activities within the universities and on the high ways. This is because the students are not known and are not offered counselling services (Nosiri, and Nwagbo, 2007)
The state of student personnel services in Nigerian universities made Chukwu (2001) to carry out a study on the problems of student accommodation, with focus on the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The situation equally made some of the universities to set up task forces on student personnel services which recommendations informed the introduction of double- bunk beds in hostel rooms, the repair and regular maintenance of such student personnel services as spoilt toilets and bathrooms, spoilt/blocked sewage, broken – down boreholes. The recommendations of the task force equally informed the supply of water to the hostels by water tankers, the renovation of hostels and hostel facilities, and the holding of regular fora to talk to students on how to manage their environment and their lives (Chukwu, 2001). Some of the universities even set up vigilante groups to beef-up security (Okolie,2001)
The federal government is aware of the unsatisfactory state of student personnel services in the nation’s universities. In February 2002 the federal government organized a meeting between chief executives of industries, including banks, insurance companies and oil companies on the one hand, and the chairmen of councils and vice-chancellors of universities to, among others, sensitize the industries of the needs of the universities, especially in the area of students personnel services (Okebukola, 2003). The federal government equally used the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) Board to provide some student personnel services like hostels, libraries. vehicles, boreholes, water tankers drugs and power generating plants to the universities (Sofoluwe, 2002).
