QUALITY ASSURANCE MECHANISMS ADOPTED BY PRINCIPALS FOR EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ANAMBRA STATE

This study examined the quality assurance mechanisms adopted by Principals for effective management of public secondary schools in Anambra State. Three research questions guided the study and three null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. From a population of 5512 a sample of 1313 participants made up of 263 principals and 1050 teachers was drawn using multi-stage sampling procedure. A self-designed questionnaire titled “Principals’ Quality Assurance Mechanisms Questionnaire (PQAMQ) was used for data collection. The instrument was validated by two experts from the Department of Educational Management and Policy and one expert from the Department of Educational Foundation (Measurement and Evaluation) all in the Faculty of Education, Nnamdi Azikiwe University. Internal consistency coefficients of 0.82, 0.80 and 0.86 were obtained for the three sections of the questionnaire using Cronbach’s Alpha method. An overall reliability co-efficient of 0.83 was obtained for the entire questionnaire. Data were analyzed using mean for the research questions and t-test for the hypotheses. The p-value was used to determine the significance of difference at 0.05 significant level. The result among others revealed that Principals to a high extent ensure that quality teaching and learning, are provided in public secondary schools in Anambra State. Principals also to a high extent ensure that school curriculum is relevant to the needs of learners. Based on the findings, the study recommended among others that Principals as part of their internal quality assurance mechanism should regularly visit the classroom to observe, monitor and supervise classroom instruction in order to ensure that better quality teaching and learning are provided in public secondary schools in Anambra State.