Teachers' time utilisation and students' enrolment in school certificate examination: implication for school leadership

Abstract

This study investigated the extent to which teachers' time utilisation influences students' enrolment in certificate examination and compared the realized teaching time by teachers in public and private secondary schools in Benin, Nigeria to draw the attention of school leadership to the importance of teachers' time utilisation to the attainment of educational goals. The survey design was employed to elicit data from three hundred and sixty randomly selected senior secondary school students from five public and five private senior schools. Questionnaire served as the data collection instrument and the data were subsequently analysed using Kolmogorov Smirnov test, Mann Whitney U test and Kruskal Wallis test. Results indicate that realised teaching time and time utilisation by the teachers in public secondary schools is significantly lower than what obtains in private secondary schools and significantly lower than the expected teaching time. The realised teaching time and time utilisation also varied significantly within the public and private secondary schools and between classes in public and private secondary schools. Lastly, class sizes were significantly large in uencthe public schools but generally small in the certificate classes, thus implying that teachers' time utilization has a significant impact on students' enrolment. The need for school leaders and administrators to ensure increased teachers' time utilisation for enhanced enrolment in certificate examinations was suggested, among others.