PERCEIVED INFLUENCE OF POLITICS ON PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ANAMBRA STATE

Abstract

The study examined the perceived influence of politics on personnel management in public secondary schools in Anambra State. Two research questions and one null hypothesis guided the study. Survey design was adopted. The population of the study covered 257 principals and 312 vice principals in secondary schools in Anambra State. All the principals were used for the study and stratified random sampling technique was used to select 150 vice principal totally 406 respondents.   The instrument for data collection was a researcher developed questionnaire titled Perceived influence of politics on the personnel management in secondary schools in Anambra State (PIPPM). The instrument was validated by three experts. Two experts drawn from the department of educational foundations and one expert in measurement and evaluation all in Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University. Descriptive statistic was adopted whereby mean scores were used to answer the research questions while t-test was used to test the null hypothesis. Cronbach alpha was used to obtain the reliability of the instrument with an overall reliability index of 0.86 which was considered adequate for the study. The finding showed that politics has affected the personnel management of secondary schools in Anambra State in such areas as recruitment, postings, promotions, planning, decision making, policy implementation among others. Based on these findings, it was recommended among others that government as a matter of urgency should desist from interfering with the decisions that will negatively affect policy implementation in Secondary School in Anambra State.