PARTICIPATORY DECISION MAKING: A TOOL FOR STAFF EFFECTIVENESS IN PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ILORIN WEST LOCAL GOVERNMENT, KWARA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Employee participation in decision making has been recognized as a managerial tool for improving organizational performance. This study examined the relationship between participatory decision making and staff effectiveness in secondary schools, Ilorin west local government area of Kwara state, Nigeria. Specifically, the study assessed: (i) the relationship between participation in academic planning and staff effectiveness; (ii) the relationship between staff participation in co-curriculum planning and staff effectiveness and (iii) the relationship between staff participation in school administration and staff effectiveness. The study was a descriptive research design of correlation type, random sampling technique was used to select 50 private secondary schools and 10 staff were selected per school in Ilorin west local government. Purposive sampling technique was used to select administrative officers (Proprietors, Principals, Vice-Principals and Bursars). Questionnaire was used to collect data for the study, the instruments were validated by the experts and also tested for reliability. The reliability coefficients realised for PDQ and SEQ were 0.82 and 0.76 respectively. Main and operational hypotheses were tested using Pearson product-moment correlation statistics respectively at 0.05 level of significance. The results revealed that there was a significant relationship between staff participation in decision making and staff effectiveness (p?0.05). The study concluded that participatory decision making plays significant role in enhancing staff effectiveness which would consequently facilitate realisation of educational goals of the secondary schools in Ilorin-west local government, Kwara state, Nigeria. The finding observed that staff of Private schools in Ilorin west local government in Kwara state are allowed to involve in academic decision making in their respective offices, their official duties were performed at the right time and this lead to effective job performance. It could also be stated that, job effectiveness of the personnel who are allowed to participate in decision making is likely to be more effective than that of their colleagues who are not allowed. This finding supports the view of Adare (2010) that schools principals no longer make decision on their own, because they need information and advice from several sources especially teachers and pupils to act rationally.