Parents' involvement in school administration as a correlate of effectiveness of secondary schools in Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined the relationship between parents’ involvement in school administration and effectiveness of secondary schools in Nigeria. The descriptive survey design was used for the study. The population consisted of all the teachers, principals and parents of the students in public secondary schools in South-West Nigeria. The sample comprised 1200 teachers, 300 parents and 60 principals from 60 secondary schools. Multi-stage, simple and stratified random sampling techniques were used to select the states, schools, teachers and parents used for the study. Two sets of questionnaire were used to collect the data for the study. The Data were analysed using frequency counts, percentage scores and Pearson product movement correlation. The only hypothesis formulated in the study was tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study revealed that parents were much involved in the administration of secondary schools in Nigeria. The study also revealed that secondary schools in the area covered were moderately effective. However, the study showed that there was no significant relationship between parents’ involvement in school administration and effectiveness in schools. It was recommended that the school administrators should sustain the high level of parents’ involvement in school administration in order to maintain cordial relationship between the parents and the school authorities. Since parents’ involvement in school administration was not significantly related to the effectiveness of the schools, the government and other stakeholders should make the teaching-learning environment of the schools more conducive in order to improve their effectiveness. Key words: Parents’ involvement, school administration, effectiveness, secondary schools.