Assessment of Political Influence on Management of Public Secondary Schools in Benue State, Nigeria

This study assessed political influence on management of public secondary schools in Benue State. To achieve the purpose of the study, two research questions guided the study and two hypotheses were tested. Survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study is 4228 comprising 304 principals and 3924 teachers from 304 public secondary schools in Benue State. The sample size of 423 out of 4228 principals and teachers in public secondary schools in Benue State representing 10% of the total population. A self-developed structured 24-item questionnaire titled “Political Influence and Management of Public Secondary Schools Questionnaire†(PIMPSSQ) with a reliability coefficient of 0.90. Mean (x) and Standard Deviation were used to answer the four research questions. Meanwhile, the chi-square (c2) test of goodness was used in testing the research hypotheses at 0.05 alpha level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that politics has high influence on funding of public secondary schools in Benue State. The finding also revealed politics high influence on provision of infrastructural facilities of public secondary schools. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that funds meant for the smooth running of public secondary schools should be made available and should be well monitored to prevent it from being diverted or embezzled. This can be achieved by putting machinery in place to monitor judicious use/utilization and distribution of funds devoid of politics in order that advantages to end users are expanded. Also, relevant and adequate facilities such as school buildings, classrooms, libraries, laboratories, workshops, teaching and learning materials should be provided and equitably distributed to the various schools at the right time for the achievement of high productivity in educational outcome in schools irrespective of their political connections and recognitions.