THE INFLUENCE OF HUMAN RESOURCES ON STUDENT ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN PUBLIC SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN EDUCATION DISTRICT
ABSTRACT
Academic performance of students is very important in the educational institution. It serves as the foundation for assessing the quality of output in relation to input in the educational institution. Human resources are a major input that can have a significant impact on students’ academic performance.
This study is thus interested in the impact of human resources on students’ academic performance. Lagos State Education District IV Sabo-Yaba was chosen at random from among the six educational districts in Lagos State to conduct this study. Using the simple random sampling technique, ten schools were chosen from the educational district.
Then, from each school, twenty teachers were chosen, for a total of 200 teachers to be used in the study. The study’s data was gathered using a four-part teachers’ questionnaire. The data analysis revealed that a high percentage of the teachers used in the study are qualified teachers, and that years of teaching experience have a significant impact on students’ academic performance.
Furthermore, a negative relationship between teacher – student ratio and academic performance was discovered. As a result of this finding, stakeholders in education should not skimp on hiring qualified and experienced teachers. They should, however, make every effort to reduce the teacher-to-student ratio because it has a negative impact on students’ academic performance.
Human Resources, academic performance, and teacher-to-student ratio are some of the key terms.
THE FIRST CHAPTER
INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Study’s Background
Education is a critical human activity. It aids any society in fashioning and modeling individuals in order for them to function well in their surroundings. According to Boit, Njoki, and Chang’ach (2012), the purpose of education is to equip citizens with the knowledge and skills needed to reshape their society and eliminate inequality.
Secondary education, in particular, is an important sector for national and individual development. It is critical in developing a country’s human resource base beyond primary education (Achoka, Odebero, Maiyo and Mualuko, 2007).
As a result, providing high-quality secondary education is critical for creating opportunities and reaping the benefits of social and economic development (Onsumu, Muthaka, Ngware and Kosembei, 2006). According to the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (2005), cognitive achievement of learners is one of the indicators of educational quality. According to Adediwura and Tayo (2007), academic achievement is defined by test and examination scores or marks assigned by subject teachers.
An organization’s Human Resources (HR) include all staff (teaching, managerial, and technical/support staff) involved in any of the organization’s activities. It is widely acknowledged that a school’s most valuable asset is its human resources (Achieng, 2012).
Despite limited resources, there is a need to expand and reform the educational system while also ensuring its quality in meeting popular demand. Teachers are the most important human resources required for the school system’s production function.
This is due to the fact that they play a significant facilitative role in the teaching – learning process. According to (Adeyemi and Akposheri, 2009), despite advances in science and technology, the teacher has not been displaced in the classroom, nor has his or her importance diminished.
Teachers appear to have a significant impact on the social and cultural development of their society, as they influence many values directly or indirectly through their students. It’s no surprise that (Chukwu, 2003), (Famade, 2003), (The National Policy on Education, 2006), (Ibukun, 2009), and (Okebukola, 2010) identified teachers’ quality and dedication as significant predictors of educational quality.
Any organization’s success is determined by the quantity and quality of its workforce. According to Ibukun, as cited in (Adegbemile, 2011), teachers hold the key to nation building. Any nation’s desire to transform into a better country can only be realized if there are competent and dedicated teachers in place to instill the necessary attitudes, skills, and knowledge.
This is especially true in educational institutions, where the people required to do the organization’s core work are highly trained individuals. The emphasis of this study will be on the teaching staff, with no less regard for the role of subordinate staff in ensuring good academic performance of students, such as preparing their meals on time, transporting them during academic performance enhancing tours, typing and producing their assessment tests, and organizing their laboratories and libraries.
A study conducted in the United States by Motoko, Akiba, Gerald Letendre, and Scribner (2004) discovered that countries with higher teacher quality produced higher academic achievement. These studies provide empirical, cross-national evidence of the importance of investing in teacher quality in order to improve national achievement.
As a result, human resource management in education entails effectively coordinating the activities of staff, students, and parents in order to achieve educational goals and objectives (Adeniyi, 2004). The National Policy on Education (FRN, 2004) clearly defines the broad responsibilities of school management, such as employment, promotion, deployment, and teacher discipline, among other things.
Nigeria’s successive governments have made efforts to improve human resource management in educational institutions. The value of human resource management
has been stated, but there is little information on its relationship with secondary school students’ academic performance. To achieve high performance in public examinations, secondary schools must recruit qualified teachers, secure modern buildings, and provide adequate facilities and equipment to enhance teaching and learning,
while teaching supervision is carried out for quality control. Administrators, managers, guidance counselors, Parents Teachers Association (PTA), curriculum specialists, funding agencies, non-teaching staff, inspectors, and examination boards are some of the other organizations that may have an impact on students’ academic performance (Osagie and Okafor, 2012).
Any organization that does not plan for its human resources will frequently discover that it is not meeting both its personnel needs and its overall goals effectively. A school, for example, may decide to add new subjects to its curriculum. If the school does not make adequate arrangements for teachers to handle these new subjects, they will remain on the timetable but will not be taught.
To bolster this point, when the federal government launched the 6:3:3:4 education system, it spent a significant amount of money on technical education equipment. However, the human resources needed to operate the equipment were not taken into account. As a result, the equipment was left to rot in the rain, and many of it was eventually stolen by hoodlums (Osagie and Okafor, 2012).
According to current educational policy, supervision of instruction is the process of overseeing teachers’ work with the goal of assisting them in solving instructional problems so that students can benefit the most from classroom activities (Igwe, 2005). This can be accomplished with the participation of the principal or any other official designated by regularly interacting with teachers and students in the classroom to monitor the teaching and learning process.
According to Nwagwu (2004), the supervisor is responsible for monitoring and evaluating all staff activities and programs within their organization. The main reason for this is to ensure that all employees comply with established laws and declared goals through quality assurance, standard maintenance, and quality control.
This viewpoint is consistent with the National Policy on Education (FRN, 2004), which states that supervision is a quality control device. The school’s goals can be achieved through the continuous supervision of the teaching and non-teaching staff.
The evaluation of staff is carried out because it determines their performance, as well as the academic performance of students. For example, Akposheri (1994) discovered a significant relationship between teachers who were highly rated during evaluation and students’ academic performance in her study. Okafor (2006), on the other hand, argued that when evaluating employees’ performance, care should be taken to ensure that the performance, rather than the employees’ personalities, is evaluated.
Secondary school not only holds a strategic position in Nigeria’s educational system, but it also serves as a link between the primary and university levels of education. According to Asikhai (2010), secondary school education is supposed to be the bedrock and foundation for higher education in tertiary institutions. It is both an investment and a tool that can be used to accelerate a country’s economic, social, political, technological, scientific, and cultural development.
It is unfortunate that today’s secondary schools do not meet the standards that are expected of them. The persistently poor performance of secondary school students in public examinations has sparked public outrage. Academic performance of students, according to Nwokocha and Amadike (2005), is the yardstick for testing a nation’s educational quality.
As a result, it is critical that students in secondary schools, in particular, maintain high performance in internal and, for the most part, external examinations.
The problem of students’ declining academic performance has been attributed to a variety of factors, including the principal’s leadership style, teachers’ quality, home factors, government factors, and a lack of educational resources (human, material, financial and physical resources).
This study, however, is limited to the provision of human resources and the academic performance of secondary school students. The availability of educational resources (both human and material) is critical because it plays a role in the achievement of educational goals.
Human resources are a distinct educational input that is required for the overall development of students’ skill acquisition and literacy. Within the educational system, human resources are divided into teaching and non-teaching personnel (Ekundayo, 2009).
The availability of these resources is required to achieve system excellence. However, it has been observed that secondary schools in Lagos State lack the required number of teachers, both in quantity and quality (Ekundayo, Haastrup, Timilehin, Alonge and Hezekiah, 2010). This is reflected in the schools’ high student-teacher ratio.
A close examination of Nigerian schools and what happens there reveals that nothing good can come from most public schools because they lack facilities and adequate and appropriate human resources to prepare candidates for West African Examination Council (WAEC) examinations (Owoeye and Yara, 2011).
Human resources improve students’ academic performance, according to studies on the relationship between human resource availability and academic performance. Teachers are a very important factor in students’ academic success, according to Adedeji (1998), Ayodele (2000), Adewuyi (2002), and Okandeji (2007) in their various studies.
Adedeji (1998), Owoeye (2000), Ajayi (2002), Akomolafe (2003, 2005), and Owoeye (2011) all reported a positive relationship between material resources in schools and students’ academic performance in a similar context. Classrooms, accommodations, libraries, furniture, apparatus, and other instructional materials, according to Hallack (1990), are examples of material resources that contribute to students’ academic performance.
So far, the literature suggests that human resources have a positive and significant relationship with academic performance. As a result, this study seeks to examine the various components of human resources in schools in terms of qualification, teacher-student ratio, and years of teaching experience of teachers as determinants of students’ academic performance.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Academic performance of secondary school students in recent public examinations is one of the major means by which the general public judges the products of secondary schools in Nigeria. As a result, Nigeria has not fared well in her efforts to provide quality education to her citizens (Ibukun, Oyetakin, Akinrotimi, Akinfolarin and Ayandoja, 2012). Motivation, leader supervision, and the quality and quantity of teaching staff and materials all have an impact on students’ academic performance (Ibukun et al, 2012).
The problem of students’ declining academic performance has been attributed to a variety of factors, including the principal’s leadership style, teachers’ quality, home factors, government factors, and a lack of educational resources (human, material, financial, and physical resources) Ekundayo et al (2010).
This study, however, is limited to the provision of human resources and the academic performance of secondary school students. Disparities in performance have been identified as one of the many challenges confronting education.
These variations had sparked considerable concern, as the government’s education spending was aimed not only at increasing enrolment but also at improving academic performance in these institutions at the lowest possible cost. The problem of this study is thus poor academic performance of students in secondary schools, which could be attributed to human resource factors.
1.3 The Study’s Purpose
The following goals are the focus of this research:
1 To ascertain the relationship between teachers’ qualifications and students’ academic performance in secondary school in Lagos State’s Education District IV.
2 To determine whether there is a relationship between teachers’ years of teaching experience and students’ academic performance in a public secondary school in Lagos State’s Education District IV.
3 To investigate the relationship between the teacher-to-student ratio and students’ academic performance in a public secondary school in Lagos State’s Education District IV.
4 To make recommendations for improved teacher planning and management that would facilitate teaching and learning and lead to increased productivity in Lagos State’s public secondary schools Education District IV.
1.4 Research Issues
The following questions would be addressed by this research.
1. What is the status of teacher supply in terms of qualifications in public secondary schools in Lagos State’s Education District IV?
2. What effect do teachers’ years of teaching experience have on students’ academic performance in public secondary schools in Lagos State’s Education District IV?
3. Is there a significant relationship between the teacher-student ratio and students’ academic performance in public secondary schools in Lagos State’s Education District IV?
1.5 Hypotheses for Research
Ho1. The status of teachers’ supply in terms of qualification has no effect on students’ academic performance in public secondary schools in Lagos State’s Education District IV.
Ho2. Teachers’ years of teaching experience have no effect on students’ academic performance in Lagos State’s public secondary schools in Education District IV.
Ho3. There is no significant relationship between teacher-student ratio and academic performance in public secondary schools in Lagos State’s Education District IV.
1.6 Importance of the Research
The significance of this study cannot be overstated, given that excellent student academic performance cannot be achieved in the absence of adequate human resources. The findings of this study will add to the existing literature and knowledge in the subject area.
The findings of this study will aid educational administrators as well as school administrators in preventing brain drain in public secondary schools, particularly in secondary schools in Lagos State’s Education District IV. In addition, the government will benefit from this research in terms of teacher recruitment and retention.
Furthermore, the study will aid educational administrators in developing a comprehensive human resource policy and programs in the education sector.
Furthermore, the findings of this study will aid educational managers, administrators, and technocrats in the formulation and implementation of educational policy in order to achieve overall educational goals and objectives.
1.7 The Study’s Limitations
The study is limited to secondary schools in Lagos State’s Education District IV. It is restricted to teachers’ qualifications, experience, and teacher-to-student ratio in secondary schools because they were thought to have a greater influence on students’ academic performance than other individuals who comprise the school’s human resources.
Teachers have been shown to have a significant impact on students’ academic achievement, and they also play an important role in educational attainment because the teacher is ultimately responsible for translating policy into action and principles based on practice during interactions with students (Afe 2001)
1.8 The Study’s Limitations
The study could be hampered by a number of factors beyond the researcher’s control. A lack of reliable data or information from participants may also limit the scope of the study in that participants may give false opinions, which may affect the study’s findings.
1.9 Term Definitions
1. Human Resources: These are the teachers who conduct instructional activities with students, whether they are employed by the government or the teaching service commission. This applies to their academic credentials, adequacy, experience, and staff development.
2. Academic performance: This is the degree to which any evaluation test or examination is passed or failed.
3. Performance: This most commonly refers to whether or not a person does a good job. Performance is a critical criterion for determining organizational outcomes and success.
4. Education: This is a formal system for transmitting culture, information, knowledge, and values to learners. It is also critical for the transmission of societal core values and other information required for growth and development.
5. Secondary School Education: This is the type of education provided to students who have graduated from primary school and prepares them for higher education.
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