RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PRINCIPALS COST REDUCTION TECHNIQUES AND THEIR ADMINISTRATIVE EFFECTIVENESS IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN RIVERS STATE

Abstract

The study determined the relationship between principals cost reduction techniques and their administrative effectiveness in public secondary schools in Rivers State. The study was guided by three research questions and three hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Correlation research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study consisted of all the 7,150 teachers in 276 public secondary schools in Rivers State. The sample size for this study comprised 850 teachers drawn using multistage sampling procedure. Two sets of researcher-developed instruments titled ‘‘Principals’ Cost Reduction Techniques Questionnaire (PCRTQ)’’ and ‘‘Administrative Effectiveness Questionnaire (AEQ)’’ were used for data collection. The instruments were validated by three experts comprising two lecturers from the Department of Educational Management and Policy, and the other a specialist in Measurement and Evaluation all from the Faculty of Education, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. The internal consistency of the instruments were ascertained using Cronbach Alpha which yielded reliability co-efficients of 0.78, 0.78 and 0.78 for Parts A, B and C respectively and the overall coefficient of the entire instrument was 0.78 and 0.79 was obtained for AEQ. The researcher together with 4 research assistants collected data for the study and 97% return rate was recorded. The data collected were analysed using Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) co-efficient to answer research questions and t-test of correlation to test hypotheses. The findings of the study showed among others that there was strong positive relationship between the scores in budgeting technique and principals’ administrative effectiveness in public secondary schools in Rivers State. It was also found out that there is significant relationship between the scores in overhead cost control technique and principals’ administrative effectiveness in public secondary schools in Rivers State. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that Rivers State Secondary Education Management Board should develop budgetary manual for guiding and serving as benchmark for the principals in estimating, monitoring and evaluating income and expenditure of school funds for attainment of administrative effectiveness.