INTRODUCTION
The effectiveness of
any educational institution can be largely determined by the capacity of the school
principal to effectively and judiciously manage finances at his disposal for
the smooth implementation of school policies and programmes. This can ensure
the attainment of planned goals and objectives. The need to achieve
effectiveness in institutions of learning has been given priority attention by
successive governments in Nigeria. This is evident in the various policies and
programmes initiated and implemented in the past. The underlying aim of the
educational programmes has been to promote effectiveness in the educational
process and operations in Nigeria. These efforts can be seen in the initiatives
of government directed towards promoting quality teaching and learning,
improvement in teachers’ capacity and welfare as well as development of relevant
educational facilities in school.
In every organization, there are three
major resources to be managed if the organization wants to achieve its desired
goals and objectives. The resources are human, material and financial resources
and out of these three, human resources development is the most important and
difficult to develop (Usman, 2016). This is because
every individual is born unique and is therefore bound to have differences in
the way they feel, think, act and reason. Since human nature plays on important
role and a major part in the overall success of an organization, it is
therefore important to have an effective working relationship between the
employee and his employers as this is essential for the success of the school
system. Human resource development which involves efficient and effective
management of employees within an organization is one of the vital functions of
educational administrators. This is because every administrator has a function
to perform through his/her staff and his own abilities.
The
attainment of institutional effectiveness can be influenced by the financial
management practices of the principal, who serve as the administrator of the
school (Kirui, Wamukuru
& Fedha, 2022). Financial management practices
entail the principal financial management activity carryout in a school.
Financial management is the process of planning, organizing, controlling and
monitoring the financial resource of an organization to achieve its objectives.
The capacity of the principal to effectively manage the finances at his
disposal can have a bearing on the image of the school under his control. Some
of the financial management practices employed by the school administrator
include revenue generation, budgeting, auditing, accountability and book-keeping.
The ability of a school principal to
initiate and implement revenue generation drive that would boost the financial
resources of a school is crucial in the attainment of institutional
effectiveness. A principal who can effectively source
for fund outside the conventional imprest he
receives, should be able to successfully implement school projects/programmes
that would lead to the attainment of specific goals or objectives. On the other
hand, a principal who lacks initiative to generate additional funds from the
statutory financial provisions may be constrained in maintaining of functional
school system. This may militate against institutional effectiveness. Korir (2018) averred that most
public secondary schools were engaged in "creation of income" or
simply Income Generating Activities (IGAs) for the effectiveness of the school
system. Supporting this assertion, Lawakasana and Getange (2017) affirmed that income generating activities eased
burden on parents, increased enrolment in schools, improved academic
performance and was used to motivate both students and teachers, and
recommended that IGAs should be encouraged and enhanced to support the academic
programme.. In line with this result, Gongera and Oddillia (2013) found out that the dominant sources of
financing secondary education were; service based incomes, commercial based and
agricultural based and that earnings from this sources enhanced management in
secondary schools through salary remuneration for BOG teachers, support staff
and student motivation.
Budgeting
is a process of preparing a statement of the anticipated income and the
proposed expenditure. It is an act of target setting. The essence of this
target setting is to prevent wastage to it barest minimum. This affirmation
made Oboegbulem and Kalu,
(2013) budgeting prevents wastage or reckless spending of funds provided for
various educational services. Educational institutions design programmes and
courses of study. Such programmes according to Akinsolu
(2008) can effectively be implemented only with availability of funds. Onuma (2016) added that, there is a significant relevance
between financial allocation and students' performance as a result of financial
allocation to education which invariably improve
students' performance in Nigeria.
This is
critical especially now that the government budget for education lies far below
the UNESCO guideline of 26%. It therefore remains that the total allocation to
education in Nigeria is below the international best practice and therefore not
likely to meet the demands of the education industry. The process of budgeting
is complex and involves the efforts of the principal and other members of the
school management team to make, if efficient and productive, this is because
the process involves various steps including the source(s) of funding the
budget, forecasting school needs, allocating funds to specific
projects/programmes among others. The ability of a school principal to prepare
and control budget serves as a guide for administering the school effectively.
This is because every school programme for a fiscal year would have been
adequately forecast, planned, funds for their implementation monitored, when a
principals is not able to effectively prepare and control budget following the
specified steps, the outcome will be a school characterized by poor quality
teaching/learning, poorly developed workforce as well as shortage or absence of
quality infrastructural facilities.
Objectives
of the Study
The following
objectives were used for the study; specifically, the study sought to
investigate the relationship between:
1.
Revenue generation and institutional effectiveness in public
secondary schools in Ikom Education Zone of Cross
River State in terms of quality of
teaching and learning, staff development programmes and availability of
infrastructural facilities
2.
Budgeting and institutional effectiveness in
public secondary schools in Ikom Education Zone of
Cross River State
Hypotheses
of the Study
The
following hypotheses were formulated for the study
1.
There is no significant relationship between
revenue generation and institutional effectiveness in public secondary schools
in Ikom Education Zone of Cross River State in terms
of quality of teaching and learning, staff development and infrastructural
facilities
2.
There is no significant relationship between
budgeting and institutional effectiveness in public secondary schools in Ikom Education Zone of Cross River State
METHODOLOGY
The research design
adopted for this was the correlational design. Correlational research design is
a research approach that attempts to find the nature of the non-causal
relationship existing between a set
of variables, of which con not be determined by the researcher or
manipulated, but present naturally within a group or sample. The population of
this study comprised all secondary school principals in public secondary
schools in Ikom Education Zone of Cross River State.
According to Planning, Research and Statistic Department of the Secondary
Education Board, there are 109 principals from 109 public secondary schools in
the zone for the 2018/2019 academic session. This made the population of this
study to be one hundred and nine (109) subjects. Further breakdown of the
population showed that 92 were males and 17 females. The total number of number
of public secondary schools in Ikom Education Zone is
one hundred and nine (109) with one hundred and nine (109) principals.
Therefore, the entire population of the study was used for the study. The
sampling technique used for this study was census. A census study is used when
the entire population is very small or it is reasonable to include the entire
population in the study, and also that data are gathered on every member of the
population. This sampling technique is deemed appropriate for this study
because of the small population involved in the study and the need to include
all the subjects in the study for adequate result and greater generalization.
The tool used for data collection was a self-structured questionnaire titled
“Financial Management Practices and Institutional Effectiveness Questionnaire
(FMPIEQ)”. The questionnaire was designed by the researcher using the modified
4-point Likert Scale of Strongly Agree (SA), Agree
(A), Disagree (D) and Strongly Disagree (SD). It contained ten (10) items
measuring the variables of the study. Items 1–5 measured revenue generation and
items 6 – 10 measured budgeting.
RESULTS
AND DISCUSSION
Objectives
1: To
ascertain the relationship between revenue generation and institutional effectiveness in public
secondary schools in Ikom Education Zone of Cross
River State in terms of quality of
teaching and learning, staff development programmes and availability of
infrastructural facilities
Hypothesis
I:
There is no significant relationship between revenue generation and
institutional effectiveness in public secondary schools in Ikom
Education Zone of Cross River State in terms of quality of teaching and
learning, staff development and infrastructural facilities.
Table No II showed that the correlation coefficients
between budgeting and institutional effectiveness in public secondary schools
in Ikom Education Zone of Cross River State in terms
of quality of teaching and learning, staff development and infrastructural
facilities. The result shows that the correlation coefficients ranged from .436
(p< .05) for staff development, .590 (p< .05) for infrastructural
facilities to .683 (p< .05) for quality of teaching and learning. The
correlation coefficients were statistically significant for all institutional
effectiveness variables and for the overall institutional effectiveness in
public secondary schools in Ikom Education Zone of
Cross River State .627( p<. 05). Based on this result, hypothesis one is
rejected on the overall institutional effectiveness and in terms of each of the
institutional effectiveness variables of quality of teaching and learning,
staff development and infrastructural facilities. This implies that there is a
significant relationship between budgeting and institutional effectiveness in public
secondary schools in Ikom Education Zone of Cross
River State
DISCUSSION
OF THE STUDY
The discussion made in this section is based
upon the interpretation done on the above tables to justify the set objectives.
The
analysis of the first hypothesis which stated that there is no significant
relationship between revenue generation and institutional effectiveness in
public secondary schools in Ikom Education Zone of
Cross River State in terms of quality of teaching and learning, staff
development and infrastructural facilities, revealed a significant relationship
between revenue generation and institutional effectiveness in public secondary
schools. This result suggests that the extent to which revenues
are generated in public secondary school in the Zone, the more the schools
become effective in all areas of the school system. This result further
suggests that institutional effectiveness in secondary schools in Ikom Education Zone of Cross River State varies directly
with the levels to which funds are generated to boost effective teaching and
learning in the school system. The overall significant positive correlation of
.700 (p< .05) explains that institutional effectiveness in public secondary
schools in Ikom Education Zone of Cross River State
is determined by the level at the school administrators are able generate funds
in the schools.
This result supports the opinion of World Bank study (2010) in China which revealed that almost
all public secondary schools were engaged in "creation of income" or
simply Income Generating Activities (IGAs) for the effectiveness of the school
system. This result also supports the
findings of Lawakasana and Getange
(2017) who examined effect of income generating activities in public secondary
schools in Transmara
Sub-County, Narok County, Kenya and found that
income from income generating activities eased burden on parents, increased
enrolment in schools, improved academic performance and was used to motivate
both students and teachers, and recommended that IGAs should be encouraged and
enhanced to support the academic programme.. In line with this result, Gongera and Oddillia (20130 who
found that the dominant sources of financing secondary education were; service
based incomes, commercial based and agricultural based and that earnings from
this sources enhanced management in secondary schools through salary
remuneration for BOG teachers, support staff and student motivation. This
implies that the level at which principals are able to source for alternative
funds in the school system has direct congruence with the effectiveness of the
school, such that the more funds are generated through internal sources, the
more funds are adequately available to school management, which is a necessary
condition for effective running of schools and attainment of effective teaching
and learning in the school.
The result of the analysis
revealed that revenue generation has significant relationships with all the
sub-scales of institutional effectiveness: quality of teaching and learning (.574,
p< .05), staff development (.585, p< .05), and infrastructural facilities (.747,
p< .05), in public secondary schools in Ikom
Education Zone of Cross River State. This result suggests that the more secondary
administrators are able to raise additional revenue for the school system, the
more they are able to enhance effective teaching and learning, organize
adequate staff development programmes for staff
improvement and provide adequate infrastructural facilities for improved
teaching and learning in the schools. The reason for this result is that
alternative funding enhances the schools’ capacity to meet their financial
obligations, and thus able to provide desired learning resources required for
effective teaching and learning, which is the basis for determining the
effectiveness of any institution.
The
analysis of the second hypothesis which stated that there is no significant
relationship between budgeting and institutional effectiveness in public
secondary schools in Ikom Education Zone of Cross River
State in terms of quality of teaching and learning, staff development and
infrastructural facilities, revealed a significant relationship between
budgeting and institutional effectiveness in public secondary schools. The result suggests that institutional
effectiveness in secondary schools in Ikom Education
Zone of Cross River State changes proportionately with the levels to which
funds are able to prepare school effectively.
The reason for this positive result is that budgeting ensures effective
implementation of educational programmes in that all activities in the school
system are adequately planned for, and allocate resources adequately for
effective execution and implementation of educational objectives in schools.
This agrees with opinion expressed in School Budget Planning Guide (2013) that the essence of
budget setting process is to ensure that resource allocation matches school
priorities, and that unplanned over-spending or under-spending of a school
budget can deflect schools from previously agreed spending priorities, and this
can affect the achievement of school development plans. These expressions
affirm the overall high significant positive correlation of .627 (p<
.05) realized in this analysis. This explains that institutional effectiveness
in public secondary schools in Ikom Education Zone of
Cross River State is determined by the level at which the school administrators
are able to institute effective budgeting process and implement the budget
according to specifications in the schools.
This because a good budget lowers the risk of
financial crisis in the year, hence, the school is more likely to be able to
fund its planned activities and less likely to spend valuable teaching and
management time responding to funding shortages.
In line with this result, Onuma (2016) examined financial allocation to education and
students' performance in Nigeria and found out a significant relationship
between financial allocation and students' performance. The result
of the analysis revealed that budgeting has significant relationships with all
the sub-scales of institutional effectiveness: quality of teaching and learning
(.683, p< .05), staff development( .436, p<
.05), and infrastructural facilities
(.590, p< .05), in public secondary schools in Ikom
Education Zone of Cross River State.
This result suggests that the more secondary administrators are able to
ensure effective budgeting system in the school system, the more they are able
to enhance effective teaching and learning, organize adequate staff development
programmes for staff improvement and provide adequate infrastructural
facilities for improved teaching and learning in the schools. This agrees with Cole
and Kelly (2011) who noted that planning in school budgeting process involves
formalization of objectives and then arranging for provision of resources in
order to achieve desired instructional outcomes. They added that for desired
learning outcomes, the product of budget planning should be a statement of
desired activities expressed in financial terms in pursuit of instructional
goal over a period of one year. The reason for this result is that
budgeting enhances the schools’ capacity to plan for all activities in the
school system before time and thus ensures effective implementation of educational
programmes in the school system.
Educational
Implication
This research paper
through its literature review and findings have highlighted some eminent issues
that border around school financing, fund sourcing and budgeting in the context
of secondary education school learning.
1.
The study exposed secondary school principals
to the importance of alternative sources of funding for effective
implementation of secondary schools education goals
2.
Considering the importance of budgeting, the
study advocated the use of effective budgeting system for all school income and
expenditure to enable principals know where and how to channel meagre resources
available for school management
3.
This study will create awareness to
principals and other stakeholders to create always create partnership with
other non-governmental organizations, philanthropies to aid in funding
education in study area.
CONCLUSION
The study concludes that secondary schools in
Ikom Education zone are facing the difficult challenge
of underfunding by the government. Though problem is not just peculiar to the
education zone only, but a national problem where less than ten per cent of
(10%) of the national budget is allocated to education in Nigeria against the
26% bench mark
of UNESCO. With this daunting challenge, principals require to swiftly employ the strategy of alternative sources of funding
secondary education in Ikom education zone as well as
conform to proper budgeting system for effective financial management in the
school subsystem.
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