Principals Human Capital Development Practices For Enhancing Staff Personnel Administration In Secondary Schools In Oyo State Nigeria

Unsatisfactory performance of secondary school students in external examinations in Oyo State seems to suggest lapses in principals application of human capital development practices especially in the areas of training and mentoring of teachers to enhance instructional delivery. This unpleasant state of affair necessitated the researchers to investigate principals human capital development practices for enhancing staff personnel administration in secondary schools in Oyo State. Two research questions guided the study and two hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The study population comprised all the principals and teachers in government owned secondary schools in Oyo State. The researchers adopted a proportionate stratified sampling technique to draw 94 principals and 588 teachers. Two version of the researchers developed instrument titled Principals Human Capital Development Practices Questionnaire PHCDPQ were used for data collection. The instrument was validated by three experts comprising two lecturers from the Department of Educational Management and Policy and the other a specialist in Measurement and Evaluation all from the Faculty of Education Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka. The reliability of the instrument were ascertained using Cronbach Alpha and the co-efficient obtained for cluster I and II of principals version were .86 and .89 respectively while the co-efficient obtained for cluster I and II of teachers version were .83 and .85 respectively. The administration of the instruments was done by the researchers together with ten research assistants who were briefed on what to do. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while t-test statistic was used to test the hypotheses. The results of the study showed among others that principals have not adequately employed training practices for enhancing staff personnel administration in secondary schools in Oyo State. It also revealed that there is no significant difference in the mean ratings of principals and teachers on principals mentoring practices for enhancing staff personnel administration in secondary schools in Oyo State. Based on the findings it was recommended among others that government should provide annual grants for principals to sponsor teachers workshops seminars and conferences in order to enable them update their skills and knowledge on current issues and also help them adapt to innovation in educational practices. Conclusion was drawn.