SOURCE:

Faculty: Education
Department: Educational Management And Policy

CONTRIBUTORS:

Dinisi, R. N.
Omenyi, A. S.

ABSTRACT:

This study determined the relationship between principals’ resource management practices and school performance in public secondary schools in the North West region of Cameroon. Four research questions were answered while four hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. A correlational research design was used in this study. The population of the study was made up of 132 principals since they head the schools and best know the management practices that should be applied. There was no sampling since all the population was used for the study. A 55-item questionnaire titled: “Principals’ Resource Management Practices Questionnaire”(PRMPQ), was used to collect data. Schools’ results at the end of course examinations for technical schools 2014 session were used as school performance index. Three experts (all from Nnamdi Azikiwe University) were used to validate the instrument. Cronbach alpha statistics was used to measure the reliability of the instrument. The instrument was administered to 20 principals, and the Conbach alpha value was 0.73. Hence the instrument was reliable for the study. Data was collected with the help of seven research assistants who were teachers representing each division in the region. Pearson's product moment correlation coefficient was used to answer the research questions. For the hypotheses, t-test was used to determine the significance of the relationships. Where the t-cal value was greater than the critical value, the hypothesis was rejected. Whereas the null hypothesis was not rejected, where the t-cal value was less than the critical value. All analyses were done using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. Findings from this study revealed that, there was a substantial positive correlation between principals’ management of human resource practices, school fund practices, physical resource practices, instructional materials resource practices and school performance in public secondary schools in North West Region of Cameroon. It was also revealed that, these relationships are all significant. Based on the findings, it was recommended amongst other things that, the government and NGOs should organise and sponsor compulsory training workshops, seminars and conferences for principals. This will arm principals with appropriate resource management skills, needed to improve on school performance.