Principals’ Perception of Human Resource Management Challenges in Secondary Schools in Enugu State

Abstract

The study centred on the principals’ perception of human resource management challenges in secondary schools in Enugu State. Two research questions guided the study while two null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The population for the study comprised all the 295 principals in the rural area and urban areas. The population for the principals was used. Therefore, there was no sampling because the population was manageable. Questionnaire was used as the instrument for data collection and was designed to elicit appropriate information from the respondents. The questionnaire was titled “Principals’ Perception of Human Resource Management Challenges Questionnaire (PPHRMCQ)”. The instrument was validated by three experts. Two of the experts were from the Department of Educational Management and the other one from Measurement and Evaluation unit of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Education all from Faculty of Education, Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT). The researcher used Cronbach Alpha statistic to determine the internal consistency of the instrument which yielded 0.79 for section A and 0.83 for section B respectively. The overall reliability index was 0.81. This showed high reliability index and was used for the study. Mean scores and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions, and t-test statistic was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. One of the major findings of the study showed that the urban and rural principals agreed on the principals’ perceptions of HRM challenges in secondary schools with respect to staff recruitment. Also, the principals’ agreed on their perceptions of HRM challenges in secondary schools with respect to staff professional training. One of the recommendations made was that staff recruitment process should be done by merits so that charlatans would not be brought into the secondary school education system. Additionally, the government through the Ministry of Education should embark on professional re-training of staff in order to be in line with the 21^st Century methods of teaching.