Educational Decentralisation and its Impact on the Effective Management of Public Primary Schools in Cameroon
Keywords:
Personnel Management, Educational decentralisation, School ManagementAbstract
This paper examines the influence of educational decentralisation and its impact on the management of primary schools. The study had as objective: to examine the influence of personnel management on the management of public primary schools in Cameroon. The ex-post-facto design employing both qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection was used in this study. Data were collected from 156 Councillors, 295 Primary school Teachers. Questionnaire and semi-structured interview guide were the instruments used for the study. The instruments consisted of both close and open ended questions. The reliability coefficient for Councillors was 0.938 while the reliability coefficient for Teachers was 0.891 which was above the recommended threshold of 0.7 thus, implying that the instrument was also valid and reliable for the study as the teachers to a greater extent were objective in their responses. Data from close ended questions were analysed using SPSS 23.0, with the aid of descriptive and inferential statistical tools while opened ended questions were analysed thematically. Findings show that personnel management (R = 564**, P = 0.000) strongly, positively and significantly affect the effective management of Primary Schools with all P-values <0.001, far < 0.05 with results from the Anova statistics predicting an effect of 54.1%. Despite this relationship, a significant proportion of respondents indicated that lack of a strong political will for the implementation of decentralisation law. Findings showed that teachers and Municipal councillors do not significantly differ in their opinion as a majority of the teachers 87.5% and Municipal Councillors 80.4% disagreed that Municipal councils managed personnel for primary schools in their jurisdiction. To remedy this challenges that have led to new Decentralisation laws, the Government should hand completely the control of Primary schools to the Local Councils (create, recruit, pay salaries, construct etc), to enable effectiveness in the management of Primary Schools.
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