HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT AS A PREDICTOR OF ADMINISTRATIVE EFFECTIVENESS AMONG PRINCIPALS OF PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ANAMBRA STATE

Abstract

Administrative effectiveness is indispensable for the actualization of the educational policy objectives. In other words, in secondary school administration no meaningful progress, can be made without administrative effectiveness because it is through it that public secondary school principals give directive to educational policies implementation, align with set educational policies and change management.  The study discussed human resources management as a predictor of administrative effectiveness among principals of public secondary schools in Anambra State. Two research questions guided the study and two null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted a correlational research design.  The population for this study comprised 267 principals of public secondary schools in the six education zones of the State. The study was a census study. The instruments for data collection were two structured questionnaires designed by the researchers, titled ‘Human Resources Management Questionnaire (HRMQ), Principals’ Administrative Effectiveness Questionnaire (PAEQ)’ were structured after the Likert type scale which had Strongly Agree (SA) =4 points, Agree (A) =3 points, Disagree (SD) =2 points, Strongly Disagree (SD) =1 point. The instruments were validated by three experts, two from Educational Management and one from Measurement and Evaluation, all from Faculty of Education, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Igbariam Campus. Cronbach Alpha method was utilized to determine the internal consistency of the instruments. The instrument yielded an average co-efficient value of 0.85 for human resources management questionnaire and 0.82 for principals’ administrative effectiveness questionnaire which was considered highly reliable and suitable for the study. A total of 267 instruments were administered to the respondents but a total of 265 was retrieved which is 96% return rate. Simple linear regression analysis was used to answer the two research questions and the two hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance to further guide the study. The findings of the study revealed that there were increase in administrative effectiveness with values of 0.41 staff performance appraisal and for 0.43 staff development. The study concluded that human resource management had large positive predictive value on administrative effectiveness of principals in public secondary schools in Anambra State.  Based on the findings the study recommended that principals imbibe good human resources management with the staff working with them to improve in their own output to bring about administrative effectiveness.