Influence of Economic Recession on Principal Financial Management in Public Secondary Schools in Southern Senatorial District of Taraba State, Nigeria

This study investigated influence of economic recession on the principal financial management in public secondary schools in Southern Senatorial District of Taraba State, Nigeria. Two specific objectives with corresponding research questions guided the study and two hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted a survey research design, and was carried out in Southern Senatorial District of Taraba State, Nigeria. The population for this study was 1642 teachers from 132 public secondary schools in Southern Senatorial District of Taraba State. A total of 240 teachers representing 15% of the entire population were selected from 20 secondary schools also representing 15% of the entire secondary schools used for the study. The instrument used for data collection was a structured questionnaire title “Influence of Economic Recession on the Principal Financial Management of Secondary Schools Questionnaire (IERPFMSSQ)†developed by the researchers. The reliability of the instrument was estimated using Cronbach Alpha statistic and an overall reliability coefficient of 0.80 was obtained. The data was analyzed using Means and Standard Deviation to answer the research questions. Chi-Square Statistic to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Findings of the study revealed that; most schools do not have a source of water for their students due to lack of funds and that games and other social activities in school come up only once in a while due to lack of fund and finally, students hardly make use of the school library due to the fact that most library books are old and not useful to them. Also, most of the buildings in school are very old as they have not been renovated for a long time, due to dilapidated structures, students hardly sit inside the classroom, making the students ungovernable and that classrooms in most public secondary schools have very poor ventilation, making it difficult for teachers and students to concentrate when teaching and learning. Based on these findings, it was recommended that; Taraba State Government should endeavour to regularly provide public secondary schools with up-to-date 21st century facilities as this could aid administrative effectiveness of teachers and increase students’ academic performance.