SCHOOL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT COMPETENCIES FOR IMPROVED ADMINISTRATIVE EFFECTIVENESS IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN RIVERS STATE NIGERIA

The study investigated school business competencies for improved administrative effectiveness in Public Secondary School in Rivers State. Three research questions and two null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The population of the study was 286 principals in all the public secondary schools in Rivers State. A sample of 166 through a stratified random technique was determined using the Taro Yamane formula. The instrument of the study was a self design instrument captioned “School Business Management Competencies Questionnaire (SBMCQ) and Principal Administrative Effectiveness (PAE) with the reliability coefficients of 0.77 and 0.84 respectively which was determined through the Cronbach alpha statistics. Mean scores and standard deviation was used to answer the research questions while Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient was sued to test the hypothesis. It was discovered that the highest kind of business available in the public school is related to cafeteria / canteen services and that also to a high extent, resourcefulness as a business management competency improves administrative effectiveness in public secondary schools in Rivers State. It concluded that for the school administrators to manage the school business effective (administrative effectiveness), they must possess the core competence of resourcefulness, conceptual thinking and administrative organisation. It was recommended among others that the principal should have a comprehensive understanding of the school complex nature and also think critically at both abstract and concrete level to harmonize a rather multifaceted business challenges in the school and proffer realistic solutions.

Impact of Envioronmental Knowledge and Attitude N Environmental Behavior of Students: A Case Study of Secondary Schools, Pakistan

The study examined the associations of environmental knowledge and environmental attitude towards pro-environmental behavior among 375 respondents of 9th and 10th grade of public and private secondary schools of Pakistan through mixed method approach. An adapted tool called ‘CATES’ originally developed by (Malkus and Musser 1993) was used to collect the quantitative part of data. Overall reliability for the present ‘study tool’ was found to be 0.791 in our Pakistani context. Association and dissociation were determined among male and female, rural and urban, and public and private students. The study found a positive association among environmental knowledge, attitude and behavior. It was found through the Independent Samples t-test that there were significant differences between environmental knowledge and income of the parents of the respondents. The significant difference was also found between the environmental attitude and the age groups 12-13 and 14-15 years. The students of younger age group of 9th grade (12-13 years) revealed comparatively better than their older counterparts i.e. 10th grade (14-15 year) students. One way analysis of variance (ANOVA) found significant differences in environmental knowledge with education and income of parents, similarly the significant difference was also found in environmental attitude and education of parents. However the study found no significant differences among environmental knowledge, attitude, and behavior towards the groups of male and female, public and private, rural and urban AN ENVIRONMENTAL STUDY ON KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND BEHAVIOR 2 respondents of the study. Pearson Correlation analysis showed a moderate r(375) = .424**, p < .001 positive relationship between environmental attitude and environmental behavior, significant but moderate positive r(375) = .313**, p < .001 between environmental knowledge and attitude, and significant but weak positive r(375) = .233**, p < .001 between environmental knowledge and environmental behavior scores of the secondary school students of 9th and 10th grade respectively. Thus the findings of the correlation analysis supported that the environmental knowledge was a weaker predictor of the environmental attitude as well as of environmental behavior, while the environmental attitude was the moderate predictor of the environmental behavior. The results of regression revealed that there was a positive impact of environmental knowledge and environmental attitude on the environmental behavior of the secondary school students of 9th and 10th grade level. Finally new directions for future research in environmental knowledge and their impacts are recommended.