Appraisal Of Community Participation In The Administration Of Public Secondary Schools

INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background Of The Study
Education is recognized as the cornerstone for sustainable development. Education is a veritable instrument for achieving economic development and social transformation of every society. Fertig (2000)regards education as a social responsibility that every citizen should enjoy as a member of a country and that everyone has a right to education. Federal Republic of Nigeria (2004) also accepted education as an instrument that brings about even and orderly development for a country. Senge (2006) opined that socio-economic development of any nation hinges on its level of educational development. The author further stressed that any country that fails to educate her citizens is trying with the level of her development; hence education is regarded as an investment which must yield high dividend.
Consequently, Ogundele (2008) noted that Nigeria as a country is faced with a lot of crises in her educational industry. These crises had been attributed to inadequate funding, poor and irregular payment of salaries, students’ population explosion, poor teachers’ job satisfaction, and inadequate supply of educational facilities and needed equipment for effective teaching learning process. The result of this brings about low quality and fallen standard of education in our secondary school system. The filmsy excuse of the government is that government alone cannot take up total responsibilities of education that it has to be paid for by all and sundry.
Because the government is unable to address these problems, community engagement in the management of public secondary schools becomes unavoidable. Influence, according to Bondesio (2000), is the capacity to elicit desired and quantifiable behaviors and results. In Nigeria, it seems that community members may engage in secondary school administration. In this research, community influence refers to community activities that result in positive transformation and efficient and effective secondary school administration. The research is being utilized in this context to evaluate the impact of community involvement in the management of public secondary schools. Effective and efficient management determines the secondary school system’s ability to achieve its goals. As a result, the school exists for the community, and the community exists for the school and serves as its customers. Administration is the capacity to put people in functioning order by instructing them what to do and how to do it in order to achieve a certain goal. Administration is described as the practice of working with and through people to achieve organizational objectives effectively (Aguba, 2009). Administration, according to Veig (2001) in Olowe (2007), is “decided activity done in pursuit of a deliberate goal.” It is the matching of available labor and resources in order to get the desired outcome at the lowest possible cost in terms of energy, time, and money (Famade, 2004).
The primary aim of administration is to coordinate people and material resources in order to achieve specified goals. In this research, secondary school administration refers to the degree to which secondary schools accomplish their objectives by creating students who have acquired information, are disciplined, and have developed suitable skills and a moral value system that allows them to participate in society. To get things done successfully, it involves collaborating with and via instructors, non-teaching personnel, and students.
Every school is part of a neighborhood (Abraham, 2003). This is because the school’s catchment area is determined by the community. A community, according to Ngoka (2003), is a group of individuals who live in the same area and have a similar religious, racial, cultural, and historical history, as well as a desire to collaborate.
Community participation in school administration is the process by which communities take responsibility for their own well-being and develop the ability to contribute to the development of their schools by participating in decision-making processes related to setting goals and pursuing issues that matter to them (Greenwood, 2009). Community involvement, according to the author, is the process of enhancing and achieving community members’ commitment to common goals via consultation in decision-making, goal-setting, collaboration, and other similar methods. The Parent Teachers Association (PTA), the Board of Governors (BOG), the School Based Management Committee (SBMC), the Old-Student Association, social groups, and the Women’s Association are among the community participants in the research. This research, however, is limited to the Parent Teacher Association (PTA), Board of Governors (BOG), and school administrators.
Community involvement in schools takes the form of managing schools through the Parent Teachers Association (PTA), Board of Governors (BOG), and School Based Management Committee (SBMC), as well as designing curriculum, serving as resource persons to teach about some culture-oriented themes, protecting and maintaining school property, and supervising and monitoring pupils’ attendance at school. The school board’s goal is to see whether implementing the community participation approach for lifelong learning is feasible. The PTA, BOG, and Principal are examples of formal governance systems that allow parents and the community to engage in their children’s education. Communities assist in the provision of necessary educational resources and infrastructures for proper school administration, such as classrooms, libraries, and hostel accommodation, as well as maintaining facilities through a variety of activities such as educational endowment funds, construction of new buildings, provision of reading materials, repairs and maintenance of existing structures, and provision of educational endowment funds (Ofougwuka, 2005). Communities also fence the school property and provide public amenities like as a toilet at the school, according to Ofougwuka. Communities under the umbrella of the Parents Teachers Association (P.T.A) offer sufficient classroom, laboratory, and office buildings, according to Harb and El-shaarawi (2006). In addition, the community, via the Parent Teachers Association and the Board of Governors, performs many responsibilities, including maintaining school discipline (Ugwu, 2000). Udensi (2003) found that community involvement in secondary school administration in Lagos State aided in maintaining school discipline. Discipline is essential for maintaining an efficient learning environment in the classroom, and it necessitates a high level of community participation. According to Shamrock (2002), schools must keep constant touch with parents in the community in order to detect the child’s overall issues at home and at school. This shows that school-community interactions are critical for preserving school discipline and improving secondary school administration. However, does the community in which the school is located participate in the management of public secondary schools in Delta state? One of the things the researcher needs to know is the answer to this question.
The neighborhood in which the school is located is a focal point for community participation in the school’s decision-making process. The process of identifying issues, developing potential solutions, selecting one, and putting it into action is known as decision making (Holt, 2004). The whole instructional curriculum for their schools is decided by the school administration, PTAs, BOGs, and elected community leaders working together. These stakeholders collaborated on a decision-making process and were in charge of their own finances, allowing them to concentrate on curriculum and program development, collegial decision-making, and strategic planning (Donald, 2005). Communities must be included in the decision-making process at public secondary schools in Delta state, according to secondary school principals. This will improve and deepen the school-community relationship, allowing communities to feel more connected and aiding efficient school management. In order to assess the degree of community engagement in decision-making processes in public secondary school administration in Delta state, the researcher wishes to learn more about it. Security is also provided by the community to protect the school plant in order for government secondary schools in Nigeria to function effectively. Typically, communities contribute to the development of the school by supplying people who provide security, act as messengers, and assist in the upkeep of the school plant in order for facilities to maintain their beauty (Grander, 2006). Ugwuanyi (2013) conducted a research on community involvement in secondary school administration in Enugu State, and found that communities are actively involved in the supply of people. According to Whawo (2002), schools cannot accomplish the job alone, and parents cannot outsource responsibility for their children’s education. All existing connections, such as the Parent-Teacher Association, the Old Students Association, and the Community Association, are beneficial. Providing people such as auxiliary staff for public secondary schools within a community is, without a doubt, one of the community’s most important responsibilities to the schools in their area. Because the community exists for the school, and the school exists for the community.

1.2 Statement of the Problem
In relation to the background of the study, there is no clear policy on legal community involvement in public secondary school management. The only legal participation of parents and community in school affairs is under Parents Teachers Association (P.T.A.) and Board of Management (B.O.M). It is also not clear who is responsible for ensuring parent and community involvement in the management of public secondary schools. The role of parents for a long time, has remained to be that of provision of finances for infrastructure developments, attending annual meetings and provision of security and healthcare to their children. In order to achieve the educational goals of the schools the community needs to be fully involved and an active participant in the implementation, monitoring and actualization of school programmes. The community ought to be treated as an integral part of the school and their roles seen more as complementary rather than supplementary. There is a need to build strong communication and successful working relations between schools and the many communities that they serve. Accounting issues, funding pressures, increasing competition and expanding expectations are just a few items in the growing list of communication pressures facing secondary schools today.
Community involvement has the potential of developing education in relation to access, retention, quality education, transparency and accountability if well established. In Nigeria this relationship is left to individual schools and administration to come up with their own initiatives and models which work by experimentation. There is no unified approach by the government even when so much has been written about its benefits. It is, therefore, not clear how such community involvement should be established. Therefore, this study appraisal of community participation in the administration of public secondary schools.

1.3 Objectives of the study
The broad objective of the study is to appraisal of community participation in the administration of public secondary schools. Other specific objectives of the study are:
a. Assess the areas in which the community participates the administration of public secondary schools in Onicha Local Government of Ebonyi State.
b. Assess the factors affecting community participation in the administration of public secondary schools in Onicha Local Government of Ebonyi State.
c. Assess the strategies for enhancing community participation in the administration of public secondary schools in Onicha Local Government of Ebonyi State.

1.4 Research Questions
This study shall attempt to provide answers to the following questions;
1) What are the areas in which the community participates the administration of public secondary schools in Onicha Local Government of Ebonyi State?
2) What are the factors affecting community participation in the administration of public secondary schools in Onicha Local Government of Ebonyi State?
3) What are the strategies for enhancing community participation in the administration of public secondary schools in Onicha Local Government of Ebonyi State?

1.5 Research Hypothesis
Ho: Communities do not significant participation in the administration of public secondary schools in Onicha Local Government of Ebonyi State.
Ha: Communities do significant participation in the administration of public secondary schools in Onicha Local Government of Ebonyi State.
Chapter one continues….