The Behaviours and Roles of School Principals in Tackling Security Challenges in Nigeria: A Context-Responsive Leadership Perspective

Abstract

Principals are at the apex of all activities in the day-to-day life of secondary schools. Their function goes beyond mere guaranteeing effective teaching and learning, as well as the smooth running of secondary schools, they are entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring an enabling environment that is composite of security and safety for both learners and teachers. However, in recent times, Nigeria has witnessed insecurity and safety challenges to unprecedented heights with students in secondary schools also at the receiving end of these unfortunate realities. Going by the current torrent of insecurity and its obvious engulfment of the Nigerian State, there is a need for principals to build bridges and galvanise their schools against the debacle of insecurity that is ravaging this nation. This paper seeks to propose the context leadership theory as the means to address this menace. The paper provided a detailed explication of insecurity issues in Nigeria, its impacts on secondary education and the implication of principals’ behaviours and roles in effectively combatting insecurities. The engagement of this theory unravels the emergence of roles that the principals can take to nip the problem in the bud. Such roles include: managing the school’s vision and mission, ensuring teachers' professional development in handling security issues, fostering normative relationships across the entire school community, dealing with internal and external influences, and manage the school’s resources. Thus, we recommend that principals need to take on the roles as mentioned above in order to ensure that the current spate of insecurity in the country does not shut the gates of their schools.