MANAGEMENT OF PRIMARY SCHOOLS BY LOCAL GOVERNMENT EDUCATION AUTHORITIES IN SOUTH EAST, OF NIGERIA

The Local Government Education Authorities were established for the purpose of proper management of primary schools. Since the inception of this body, there have been problems in the management and control of primary schools in various states of Nigeria. These problems ranged from inadequate qualified teaching staff, poor staff development, mismanagement/lack of fund, inadequate physical facilities and equipment, lack of thorough supervision of classroom instructions to incessant cases of boundary disputes/land encroachment in schools. The purpose of this study therefore was to investigate the management of primary schools by the Local Government Education Authorities in the South Eastern States of Nigeria. The study was guided by five research questions and five null hypotheses and the design used was descriptive survey design. The sample of the study was 964 head teachers, 19 Education secretaries and 30 SUBEB senior staff. The instruments used for data collection were questionnaire, focus group discussion and interview schedule. In addition, a physical facilities and equipment observation schedule was used for on-the-sport assessment of the physical facilities in selected schools in the study area. In analyzing the data, mean scores and standard deviations were used to answer the research questions, while the t-test statistics was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 levels of significance. Also percentage scores were used to analyse the data obtained from observation with checklist. The study, among others, revealed that funds meant for the management of primary schools were utilized to a little extent in maintenance of school buildings and in providing physical facilities/educational materials for effective teaching and learning. Findings also revealed that organising seminars and workshops for teachers, auditing primary schools’ account, granting study leave with pay to teachers and providing adequate qualified teachers to primary schools were given little attention. Based on the findings, the researcher recommended that: education sector should be adequately funded so that enough funds will be disbursed to LGEAs for proper management of primary schools. Also there should be regular auditing of the funds so allocated to ensure that they are judiciously used for the purpose they are meant for.