Perceived Influence of School Supervision on the Management of Public Senior Secondary Schools in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State

: This study investigated perceived influence of school supervision on the management of public senior secondary schools in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State, using three research questions and three hypotheses. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. The total population was 198 respondents consisting of 107 principals and 91 supervisors from all public senior secondary schools and zonal offices in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State. A sample size of 198 respondents was selected through census sampling technique. The instrument for the study was a self-structured questionnaire titled “Perceived Influence of School Supervision on the Management of Public Senior Secondary Schools Questionnaire” which was validated by experts in the Departments of Measurement and Evaluation and Educational Management; while Cronbach Alpha was used to achieve reliability indexes of 0.86, 0.81 and 0.78. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while z-test was used in testing the formulated null hypotheses at .05 level of significance. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that school managers should maintain a cordial relationship with the communities that play host to them in order to facilitate smooth operations of the schools under their leadership, school facilities should be properly managed for them to remain functional and serve the purpose for which they were procured for.


Introduction
For schools to achieve efficiency and effectiveness there is the need for supervision in our educational system.School supervision is fundamentally the practice of monitoring the performance of school staff, noting the advantages and disadvantages and using befitting and amicable techniques to ameliorate the flaws while still improving on the advantages, thereby increasing the standard of schools and achieving educational goals.School supervision according to Babalola and Ayeni (2009) is regarded as the process of guiding, encouraging, directing and motivating workers so as to improve their output.It ensures that all staff respect appropriate rules, routines, procedures and regulations to achieve set objectives.School supervision is carried out in secondary schools to review the quality of the educational inputs,

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which are targeted at improving the process with a view to having quality output in the educational system.The Federal Republic of Nigeria (2014) stated that the senior secondary education is the education children received after primary education and before the secondary stage which shall prepare them for useful living within the society; and higher education.A viable senior secondary education requires a proper management by the school manager, which in this case is the principal.
According to Nwankwo in Peretomode (2019) management is the careful systematic arrangements and use of resources (human, material and financial), situations and opportunities for the achievement of the specific objectives of a given organization.It is the means by which formal goals are achieved through cooperative human effort.School management according to Peretomode ( 2019) is concerned with systematically arranging available resources and prudently utilizing them and implementing rules, plans, programmes and educational policies to achieve educational goals.The manager of any school has the responsibility of providing high quality education for all students of the school.He or she is directly responsible for the successful operation of the school and in developing effective instructional programs and providing a conducive and improved environment for teaching and learning.It is also the responsibility of the school manager to carry out and oversee the day-to-day activities of the school.Hoy and Miskel (2008) identified seven broad categories of managerial task-areas of the school manager as; pupil personnel, staff personnel, community-school relationship, supervision of instruction and curriculum development, school finance and business management, school plant and general tasks.The study focused on three managerial functions of the school manager which includes management of schoolrelationship relationship, school facilities and school funds.

Conceptualizing School Supervision
Supervision is derived from the word "super video" meaning to oversee Babalola in (Elenwo, 2018).Nnabuo, Okerie, Agabi and Igwe (2012) posit that school supervision is seen as a mechanism used for achieving quality to effective management and control of education and that it is one of the functions of administration concerned with guiding the dayto-day action of the people.Akinwumyer and Agabi (2008) categorically, conceptualize school supervision as designed to achieve improvement in instruction, resolution of school constraints, maintenance of superordinate-subordinate cooperation, professionalism and autonomy of staff and achievement of intrinsic motivation.

Influence of School Supervision on School-Community Relationship
Every school is located in a community and as such cannot be separated from its host community.This indicate that the community and the school exist side by side and always being in existence as a pre-existing condition for effective school administration.The most involvement of parents in school matters in most of the communities is usually through the Parent Teacher Association (P.T.A.).The Parent-Teacher Association (P.T.A) helps in the general development of the school along with other community members, by providing the school with classrooms, dormitory blocks, staff quarters, science laboratories and equipment, electric plant generators, school vans, libraries, books and classroom equipment (Prew, 2012).All School managers are the internal supervisors of their respective schools.The school managers are saddled with the responsibility to develop and administer guidelines and measures for parents and community participations in school matters.They create ample time to always converse with parents, proffer solutions to their complaints, represent the school by participating in community organizations, liaise with other community agencies and examine and reexamine suitable strategies that will improve community life.

Influence of School Supervision on Management of School Facilities
School facilities consist of the school buildings, school grounds, instructional materials, equipment, hostels, libraries, laboratories and other education facilities that are provided in the school which aid the stimulation of teachinglearning process.Programme in Educational Building in Asiabaka (2011) described school facilities as the practice of co-ordination of the physical workplace with the people and the work of the organization; it integrates the principles of school administration, architecture and the behavioural and engineering sciences.School managers determines the school facilities needs of the community and resources which can be marshaled to meet those needs, develop comprehensive plan for the logical growth and improvement of the school facilities, general supervision of the grounds, buildings, develop an efficient program of operation and maintenance of the physical plan, that is administers the school facility, supervise custodial staff and inspect school premises regularly and giving attention to safety factors (Peretomode, 2019).(McGrowen, 2007) observed that school facilities are the essential materials that must be put in place and considered so that the objectives of the school system can be achieved; the availability of those facilities determines the quality of instruction and performance of the students in the school.

Influence of School Supervision on Management of School Funds
Management of school funds involves making budget for the school, securing revenue from the government or through other sources, managing expenditure, and directing non-teaching personnel.The school manager should prepare the budget, secure revenue for the school and also use the fund at his disposal judiciously.He must also provide a proper accounting system for the money collected in the school (Agih,2015).Kalu (2011) stressed that principals of schools should rise to face the challenge of wise and judicious spending of funds by strictly following the budget process.Prudent management of funds to meet up with the set objectives in the school system calls for strict compliance to the financial management policies.The best way of managing school funds is preparing and executing school budget which covers the proposed programmes, activities and services (Orji,2011).All these could be ascertained through regular supervision of schools.

Statement of the Problem
Supervision, whether internal or external, is carried out in order to review the quality and quantity of the educational inputs, which are targeted at improving the process with a view to having quality output in the educational system.Supervision reports are to be implemented by the government.Unfortunately, supervision is not adequately carried out and some of the reports end up in the shelves of the government.As a result of inadequate supervision, education lacks its quality, sufficient funds are not allocated for efficient running of schools, there are inadequate facilities, the relationship between some schools and their host communities is unhealthy.Also, the number of dilapidated buildings, broken chairs and tables, few teaching aids that teachers continually improvise, obsolete textbooks in the library, lack of laboratory equipment, etcetera show that many reports are not implemented.Could this be true?
The study seeks to find out perceived influence of school supervision on the management of public senior secondary schools in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State.

Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study is to find out the influence of school supervision on the management of senior secondary schools in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State.
The study is conducted to specifically: 1.
determine the influence of school supervision on the management of schoolcommunity relationship as perceived by principals and supervisors in public senior secondary schools in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State.

2.
examine the influence of school supervision on the management of school facilities as perceived by principals and supervisors in public senior secondary schools in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State.

3.
ascertain the influence of school supervision on the management of school funds as perceived by principals and supervisors in public senior secondary schools in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State.

Research Questions
The following research questions will guide the study:

1.
To what extent does school supervision influence the management of school-community relationship as perceived by principals and supervisors in public senior secondary schools in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State?

2.
To what extent does school supervision influence the management of school facilities as perceived by principals and supervisors in public senior secondary schools in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State?

3.
To what extent does school supervision influence the management of school funds as perceived by principals and supervisors in public senior secondary schools in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State?

Research Hypotheses
The study formulated the following null hypotheses which were tested at .05 level of significance: 1.
There is no significant difference between the mean perceptions of principals and supervisors on the influence of school supervision on the management of schoolcommunity relationship in public senior secondary schools in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State.

2.
There is no significant difference between the mean perceptions of principals and supervisors on the influence of school supervision on the management of school facilities in public senior secondary schools in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State.

3.
There is no significant difference between the mean perceptions of principals and supervisors on the influence of school supervision on the management of school funds in public senior secondary schools in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State.

Methodology
The research design for the study was the descriptive survey design.The population of the study was 198 respondents consisting of 107 principals and 91 supervisors from all public senior secondary schools and zonal offices in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State.A sample size of 198 respondents consisting of 107 principals and 91 supervisors from all public senior secondary schools and zonal offices in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State were derived through census sampling technique.A self-developed questionnaire titled "Perceived Influence of School Supervision on the Management of Public Senior Secondary Schools Questionnaire (PISSMPSSSQ)" was used to collect data from the respondents.The instrument had two sections; sections A and B. Section A dealt with demographic information while section B had 15 questionnaire items based on the objectives of the study.The response scale was structured on a 4-point Likert rating scale of Very High Extent (VHE); High Extent (HE); Low Extent (LE); and Very Low Extent (VLE) with values 4, 3, 2 and 1 respectively.The instrument for data collection was validated by three experts from Educational Management and Measurement and Evaluation.Cronbach Alpha was used to determine and obtain reliability indexes of 0.86, 0.81 and 0.78.Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions with a criterion mean of 2.50.Questionnaire items with ratings below 2.50 denoted Low Extent while 2.50 and above signified High Extent.The hypotheses were tested using z-test statistics at .05 level of significance.Analyzed data therefore, with calculated z-values above the z-critical value of ±1.96 were rejected and below ±1.96 were accepted.

Results
Research Question 1: To what extent does school supervision influence the management of school-community relationship as perceived by principals and supervisors in public senior secondary schools in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State?Source: Researcher's Field Result, 2023 Data on Table 4 above revealed z-test analysis of difference between the mean perceptions of principals and supervisors on the influence of school supervision on the management of school-community relationship in public senior secondary schools in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State.At .05 level of significance and 196 degree of freedom, the z-calculated value of 0.50 was less than the z-critical value of ±1.96; therefore, the null hypothesis was accepted which states that there is no significant difference in the perceptions of principals and supervisors on the influence of school supervision on the management of schoolcommunity relationship in public senior secondary schools in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State.
Hypothesis 2: There is no significant difference between the mean perceptions of principals and supervisors on the influence of school supervision on the management of school facilities in public senior secondary schools in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State.Source: Researcher's Field Result, 2023 Table 5 shows the z-test analysis of difference between the mean perceptions of principals and supervisors on the influence of school supervision on the management of school facilities in public senior secondary schools in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State.At .05 level of significance and 196 degree of freedom, the z-calculated value of 0.71 was less than the z-critical value of ±1.96; so the null hypothesis was accepted which states that there is no significant difference between the mean perceptions of principals and supervisors on the influence of school supervision on the management of school facilities in public senior secondary schools in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State.

Hypothesis 3:
There is no significant difference between the mean perceptions of principals and supervisors on the influence of school supervision on the management of school funds in public senior secondary schools in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State.

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At .05 level of significance and 196 degree of freedom, the z-calculated value of 0.57 was less than the z-critical value of ±1.96; thus the null hypothesis was accepted which states that there is no significant difference between the mean perceptions of principals and supervisors on the influence of school supervision on the management of school funds in public senior secondary schools in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State.

Discussion of Findings
Findings on research question 1 on Findings on research question 2 on Table 2 showed that principals and supervisors to a high extent agreed that school supervision influence management of school facilities in public senior secondary schools with grand mean score of 2.85, for both principals and supervisors in public senior secondary schools and zonal offices in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State.Hypothesis 2 on Table 5 showed that there is no significant difference between the mean perceptions of principals and supervisors on the influence of school supervision on the management of school facilities in public senior secondary schools in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State with a z-calculated value of 0.71 which was less than z-critical value of ±1.96.This finding is in consonance with McGrowen (2007) who observed that school facilities are the essential materials that must be put in place and considered so that the objectives of the school system can be achieved as the availability of the facilities determines the quality of instruction and performance of the students in the school.
Findings on research question 3 on Table 3 proved that principals and supervisors to a high extent agreed that school supervision influence management of school funds in public senior secondary schools with grand mean score of 2.87, for both principals and supervisors in public senior secondary schools and zonal offices in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State.Hypothesis 3 on Table 6 proved that there is no significant difference between the mean perceptions of principals and supervisors on the influence of school supervision on the management of school funds in public senior secondary schools in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State with a z-calculated value of 0.57 which was less than z-critical value of ±1.96.This finding was in agreement with Agih (2015) who stated that school manager should prepare the budget, secure revenue for the school and also use the fund at his disposal judiciously and maintain proper account for the money collected in the school.

Conclusion
In view of the results obtained from the study, it was concluded that school supervision has positive influence on management of schoolcommunity relationship, school facilities and school funds in public senior secondary schools in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State.

Recommendations
Based on the findings of the study the following recommendations were made: 1. School managers should maintain a cordial relationship with the communities that play host to them in order to facilitate smooth operations of the schools under their leadership.

2.
School facilities should be properly managed for them to remain functional and serve the purpose for which they were procured for.

3.
School managers should at all times liaise with the members of the Parents Teachers Association and Community Development Committee of their host communities as they could help in mobilizing funds that could be used in ameliorating the effect of inadequate funding of schools by the government.