The Perception of School Heads and Teachers on Challenges of Effective Management of Public-Boarding Schools in Ondo State, Nigeria

The study investigated the perception of school heads and teachers on challenges of effective management of public-boarding schools in Ondo State, Nigeria. It involved the use of the 23 public-boarding schools in the State. All the 23 schools were used while 6 government appointed and full-time teachers (3 males and 3 females) were selected from each school, which totaled 138 teachers. The teachers were selected through stratified and simple random sampling techniques. 2 research questions were raised and 2 hypotheses formulated while descriptive-survey design was adopted. Data were gathered using a self-developed 13-item questionnaire, validated and tested for reliability (r= 0.90) and analysed using frequency count, tables, percentage, mean, as well as Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) while the hypotheses were tested using chi-square statistic. The study found inadequate food, high cost of food items, indiscipline of pupils/students, theft of boarding materials, invasion of school by hoodlums, lack of/inadequate provision of security guards, erratic power supply, among others, as the challenges facing effective management of public-boarding schools in the state. Also, no significant difference was found in the perception of male and female school heads, school heads and teachers, on the challenges of effective management of boarding schools. Based on the challenges found, it can be concluded that all is not well with public-boarding schools in the State. The need for administrators of boarding schools to make the environment very conducive for pupils/students and for government to formulate policies which will address the challenges of effective management of boarding schools, among others, are recommended.