APPRAISAL OF QUALITY ASSURANCE MEASURES IN THE MANAGEMENT OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS AND ITS IMPLICATION ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING AND MATHEMATICS EDUCATION

This study appraised the extent of funding and provision of physical facilities as quality assurance measures in the management of public secondary schools in South East Nigeria. Descriptive research design was adopted for the study using a sample of 1, 456 respondents which comprised 343 principals and 1,113 teachers was used for the study. A researcher developed instrument known as Appraisal of quality assurance measures in the management of secondary schools questionnaire (AQAMQ) was used for data collection. The instrument was face validated and properly trial tested. Reliability indices of 0.72 and 0.75 were estimated using Cronbach alpha method for the two clusters of the instrument. Data collected were analysed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions and independent samples t-test to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study showed that funding of secondary education and provision of physical facilities are carried out to a low extent in secondary schools in South East Nigeria. Further analysis showed that there were significant (p ≤ .05) differences in the mean ratings of principals and teachers with respect to how those quality assurance measures are being carried out in secondary schools. This finding implicates the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education (STEME) career in the sense that students' choice of careers in STEME will be very low if adequate provision of funds and physical facilities are not ensured at secondary education.