CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Every organization's mission is to achieve stated objectives with the human and material resources at hand. Because the school is a formal organization, it has established goals that must be met. Teachers, according to Owan (2012), are important predictors of a school's success or failure because they are the roots of any tree (any educational system). The tree gets nutrients to all of its limbs through its roots, so if the roots aren't alive or healthy, the tree will eventually die or wither (Owan, 2012). According to the above argument, teachers constitute the backbone of the educational system and can help or hinder the school's achievement of stated goals. Teachers offer learners instruction (nutrients) to help them grow into fully nourished (useful) individuals. As a result, excellent teachers are required for the educational system to remain alive and well.

Teachers' job effectiveness refers to the degree to which they are carrying out their educational responsibilities in the classroom, which has the potential to help or hinder the school from achieving its goals. One of the most important factors used to evaluate the efficiency of any school has been the effectiveness of its teachers. Many secondary school teachers in the Calabar South Local Government Area of Cross River State have been noted to be absent from school due to negligence, and some have bad attitudes toward punctuality and good record keeping. Many parents noticed and claimed that many secondary school teachers were having sexual connections with certain senior secondary school students of the opposite gender. This was especially prevalent among reckless male professors who slept with and raped multiple pupils who refused to formally embrace their abusive relationship. These teachers' poor and inefficient attitudes have generated a slew of issues for families, particularly women, who are frequently blamed by their husbands. Furthermore, instructors' negative attitudes have not only harmed the normal operation of the school, but they have also harmed students' academic performance in classrooms and on standardized examinations governed by agencies such as NECO, WAEC, JAMB, and others. According to Avwerosuo (2017), there has been a slight improvement in the condition of teachers' service. This includes relatively prompt payment of teachers' salaries, salary increases following the recent minimum wage declaration, promotion of teachers in some quarters, and the construction of classroom blocks and a few offices, which is a project that has recently begun (Avwerosuo, 2017). With all of these changes in place, secondary school teachers should be able to do their jobs effectively. In the field of study, however, the opposite is true. As a result, the researchers decided to investigate whether the management of school-related variables has an impact on the job performance of instructors. The varied traits and unique attributes that can be noticed from school to school and that distinguish one school from another are referred to as school related variables. Some schools, for example, are publicly funded, while others are privately funded. Institutional variables, according to Arop and Owan (2018), remain an essential area in the educational system that should be examined and carefully managed in order to improve teachers' work performance. Class size management, school management style, and school location management are all examples of school management related factors in this study. The total number of pupils in a class who attend lessons together, interact with one another, and share resources with one another inside the constraints of a classroom is referred to as class size. The size of a class has a significant impact on students' academic achievement. Various scholars and educationists agree that the smaller the class size or the teacher-to-pupil ratio, the better the performance of teachers and students. This is due to the fact that when class sizes grow larger, teachers' and students' performance suffers (Fabunmi, Brai-Abu & Adeniji, 2007). As a result, class size management is merely ensuring that the number of students assigned to a teacher does not overwhelm the teacher. For successful teaching and learning, the recommended teacher–student ratio for secondary school is 1:35 (The Federal Republic of Nigeria-FRN, 2004) (i.e. one teacher to 35 students). The strategies and techniques employed by the school administrator to get things done and achieve the school's stated goals are referred to as school management style. According to Akpan (2016), any organization's success is mostly determined by its leadership. The school leader (principal) should have specific characteristics that enable him or her to carry out his or her administrative duties efficiently and successfully in order to achieve the school's goals and objectives. It may be claimed that different schools are led by distinct leaders, each with their own personality traits. Because of these disparities in school leader traits, school leadership differs from one school to the next. A school's location relates to where it is located; it can be in a rural setting, an urban setting, or a sub-urban setting. It refers to the location in which a school is constructed. A school can be constructed on a hill, in a swampy location, in a sloppy area, in a rural or urban setting, and so on (Arop and Owan, 2018). A school, according to Nirav (2018), should be put up in an appropriate environment. The location of the school is quite important. It must have plenty of open areas with plenty of shady trees, far away from the city's noise and toxic atmosphere. There should be a sense of calm and quiet that promotes teaching and learning. As a result, school location management refers to the deliberate judgments made about how and where to locate a school, as well as the measures put in place to guarantee that environmental dangers within that setting are periodically addressed. Given the vital role that teachers play in teaching and learning, their perceived ineffectiveness in carrying out their responsibilities in the Calabar South Local Government Area of Cross River State, is an issue. This issue requires immediate response, particularly given proof that pupils' academic performance has been significantly impacted. In light of this, the purpose of this study was to look at school-related characteristics and teachers' job performance in secondary schools in Cross River State's Calabar South Local Government Area.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Secondary schools, it should be remembered, were formed for the benefit of society as a method of creating great students and delivering good inputs to postsecondary institutions. Everyone in the secondary school system, including principals, teachers, and non-teaching personnel, was expected to have an active role in changing secondary school students' behavior through effective teaching and learning. Teachers, who are the major drivers of the curriculum implementation process, should, in an ideal circumstance, do their tasks with maximum efficacy and willingness in order for the school to meet its objectives. Unfortunately, many teachers in Cross River State's Calabar South Local Government Area have poor and ineffective work attitudes, particularly in terms of record keeping, punctuality, attendance in classes, self-discipline, drafting lecture notes, and so on. These negative attitudes are unacceptable because they lead to the downfall of the educational system and its inability to achieve its goals. To improve teachers' effectiveness, the government and other NGOs have arranged retraining and development workshops for them, improved teachers' remuneration structures, prompt payment of teachers' salaries, and so on. Despite these attempts, many secondary school instructors in the Calabar South Local Government Area are adamant about not improving. The current low performance of pupils in classrooms and standardized examinations such as WAEC, NECO, GCE, JAMB, and others indicates that the effectiveness of teachers who teach such children should be questioned. The quality of students sent to tertiary institutions from secondary schools has also decreased. Many secondary school graduates do not have the capacity to read or write when they enter university institutions. As a result, the quality of graduates generated by higher institutions each year, as well as Nigeria's overall economic productivity, has suffered. The importance of competent teachers can not be overstated. Could management of school-related elements such as school infrastructure, class size, school management style, and school location be responsible for teachers' work effectiveness? This study arose from an attempt to answer this question.

1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The overall goal of this research was to look into teacher management effectiveness in secondary schools in the Calabar South Local Government Area of Cross River State. The goal of this research was to see how the influence of:

I.       The impact of class size management on the performance of instructors' jobs.

II.    The impact of school administration style on teacher productivity.

III. The impact of school site management on teacher productivity

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

I.       What is the impact of class size management on the performance of teachers' jobs?

II.    What is the impact of school administration style on teacher productivity?

III. What is the impact of school size management on teacher productivity?

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study will be significant because it will produce data that will assist a variety of individuals and educational stakeholders, including the Ministry of Education, researchers, and PTA members, in determining the extent to which effective classroom management affects secondary school students' academic performance. The outcomes of this study will assist teachers in determining the impact of their classroom management on their students' academic achievement in school. Similarly, the results of this study will be used by the Ministry of Education and curriculum planners to aid them in instilling classroom management skills in instructors in order to improve students' academic performance. PTA members will benefit from the study because they will gain a better understanding of how disruptive behavior might affect students' academic achievement. It will raise awareness among teachers and parents about the importance of creating a positive learning environment for children in order to improve their academic performance.

1.6 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The focus of this study is limited to the role of teachers in effective management of the classrooms in secondary schools in Calabar. And the Calabar south local government was used as the case study.

1.7 LIMITATION OF STUDY

The study was limited given the short duration of the study, all schools in Calabar could not be covered and the budget was also a limit to this study.

1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS

Effective management: Effective management refers to the extent to which teachers achieve their targets with the assistance of organisational resources.

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