ABSTRACT
The study investigated the administrative practices the public secondary school principals in Oredo Local Government Area, Edo State, Nigeria. Five research questions and five hypotheses were formulated were raised to guide the study. The study adopted a survey research design. The population for this study comprised of all the teachers in public Senior Secondary School in Oredo Local Government Area in the 2021/2022 academic session. Thus, the overall population comprised sixteen (16) principals, one thousand and ninety six (1,096). The sample for the study comprised of one hundred and twenty six (150) (one hundred and fifty) teachers.7 schools were randomly selected from the 16 public senior secondary schools in Oredo Local Government Area. Thirty (30) teachers each were randomly selected at random to form a total of 150 teachers sampled.
A structured questionnaire titled: Administrative Practices of Principals Questionnaire (PAPQ) was used for data collection. The research instrument was validated by the researcher’s supervisors as well as two other experts in the Department of Educational Management (DEM) and University of Benin, Benin City was subjected the instrument to face validation. The split half technique was used to ascertain the internal consistency of the instrument. The researcher used the questionnaire to obtain information on 10 teachers in private secondary schools in Benin City, in the questionnaire. The data collected were splited into two halves of 20 items each and analyzed using Pearson Product Moment Correlation. A Correlation Coefficient of 0.76 was obtained. The data collected were analyzed using frequency count and percentages to answer research question 1 while, Mean and standard deviation were used to answer research questions.
The study found that Principals do not demonstrate leadership practices in the course of carrying out their administrative duties to a high extent and Principals do not demonstrate communication skills in the course of carrying out their administrative duties to a high extent. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended amongst others: Planning of secondary school educational activities should be a concerted effort of all stakeholders involved: the government through the National Board for Technical Education, Curriculum Development Centre, PTA of Secondary schools and other management staff. A good communication network should be established and encouraged to be used in different secondary schools amongst others.
