CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Every class in the College has a Class Rep or two. They are normally elected within the first few week of a class starting. Class Reps represent students by talking to their peers about all aspects of life on their course. They then attend meetings with key staff members and Students’ Association members and provide them with feedback that has been gathered from their peers. The Nigerian higher education has been accused of performing below expectation when judged from both internal and global benchmarks of quality of output, peaceful co-existence on campus, fair conduct of examination, amongst others. The nature of higher education is such that its students are seen by members of campus community as adults who have attained the age of taking full responsibility of their behaviours and students on their part see themselves as those set free from the encumbrances of family control and influences. Indeed the campus environment is one perceived as “everyone to himself/herself”. Students’ relationship with teachers, fellow students, staff and management appears to be characterized by this attitude despite the fact that both the young and old require to be given a reasonable possibilities of academic enhancement and social wellbeing.
Lee and Davis (cited in summers et al., 2007) defined connectedness as a students’ psychological sense of belonging on a campus. A substantial body of empirical researches has given evidence of the effect of students’ connectedness on their wellbeing and academic achievement (Karcher, 2003; Blum, 2005). It is therefore important that parents, teachers, educators and educational institutions know how connected the students are to their schools considering that this connection underpins students’ wellbeing, academic achievement and success.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
In Nigeria, the management of higher institutions has become a herculean task because of so many problems bedeviling them. This is mainly because of issues like poor funding, cultism, deteriorated infrastructure, communication gap etc. All these have made students and staff not to achieve the full aim of tertiary education in Nigeria. These therefore have become a source of worry to the researchers and they now ask; Could it be as a result of poor budgeting by the government? Could it be as a result of maladministration of Nigeria tertiary education?
1.3 Research Questions
The following research questions are posed to guide the study:
- Does Class Representatives undergo Leadership Training in Federal Polytechnic Oko before assuming their duties?
- To what extent has class representatives acquired leadership skill as a result of their Job as class rep?
- What are the challenges of class representatives in Federal Polytechnic Oko?
1.4 Purpose of the Study
The general purpose of this study is to examine the Class Representatives And Leadership Training In Federal Polytechnic Oko, Anambra State: Specifically, this work sought to:
- To examine whether the Class Representatives undergo Leadership Training in Federal Polytechnic Oko before assuming their duties.
- To ascertain whether class representatives has acquired leadership skill as a result of their Jobs as class rep.
- To identify the challenges of class representatives in Federal Polytechnic Oko.
1.5 Research Hypotheses
For the purpose of analysing the data generated for the study, the following hypotheses were tested;
Ho1: Class Representatives undergo Leadership Training in Federal Polytechnic Oko before assuming their duties.
Ho2: Class Representatives doesn’t undergo Leadership Training in Federal Polytechnic Oko before assuming their duties.
Ho1: class representatives has be of help to the students of department of public administration in Federal Polytechnic Oko.
Ho2: class representatives has not be of help to the students of department of public administration in Federal Polytechnic Oko.
1.6 Significance of the Study
This research work is of great relevance to the society at large. This is applicable to the government, the readers of this research work and to the researcher.
The benefit of this research work to the government is that by the end of the research, the weak-points and short – comings of all the sectors of the nation would be pinpointed and displayed based on findings, thereby proffering solution to the problem.
To the reader, they will be upgraded intellectually and also will be highly informed of the up and doings of the current administration. It will also give the reader’s insight on how the women participate in politics and policy making of the nation, also partake in the political affairs of the country geared towards the achievement of national development.
1.7 Scope of the Study
The essence of this research work is to study Class Representatives and Leadership Training In Federal Polytechnic Oko, Anambra State: The research intends to focus on the Department Of Public Administration, FPO. 2015-2019.
1.8 Limitations of the Study
In the course of writing and carrying out this project work, the research encountered many difficulties; some errors in the results of the research and from external sources of data collection. These are factors standing as constraints thereby limiting the effect of the research result.
Among these are, time finance, scope and use of wrong statistics in data analysis, due to time limit, the research work is a time consuming one. A lot of time is taken to observe the subjects.
Most times the behaviour of the staff changes even when they are aware that they are being observed by the researcher, this is by taking their behavior. The researcher also observed that these senior staff some time give true and false information in order to cover their branches.
At sometime the research work lasted over two months due to large scope of area of the study.
1.8 Operationalization/Definition of Terms
In a study of this nature, it is worthwhile to give the operational definition of the key concepts, terms or variables which may occur frequently or from time to time in the course of the work. The following definitions of terms simply represent the meaning(s) given to them in the study. The terms include:
Training: training is organization‘s effort aimed at helping an employee to acquire basic skills required for the efficient execution of the functions for which he was hired.
Staff: A number or group of regularly paid workers in a workplace or organization.
Control: Power or authority to supervise, to monitor one’s activities or actions in a work place based on superior/subordinate relationship; to hold in check; a curb. Control is also a management function of ensuring workers’ performance through the use of coercion, manipulation, authority and persuasion.
Discipline: According to Hornby, discipline refers to the “training, especially of the mind and characters, to produce self-control habit of obedience, etc. second, Webstar defined the concept as “punishment inflicted by way of correction and training … etc”. we will marry the two closely related definitions to arrive at an operational definition of discipline as punishment used to correct or to train any deviant or ineffective worker in an organization.
The Nigerian Tertiary Institutions: The Nigerian Tertiary Institutions is in this work, taken to mean a network of all those polytechnics in Nigeria under the umbrella and control of the federal or state government and together supervised and managed by the National Polytechnics Commission (NPC) eg. Federal Polytechnic Oko.
Student: is a person who goes to school and is learning something. Students can be children, teenagers, or adults who are going to school, but it may also be other people who are learning, such as in college or university.
Tertiary institution: it means a university or other tertiary education provider recognised by the Employer which offers Degrees, Diplomas or teacher education courses.
Leadership: It is the art of influencing people that they get to strive willingly towards the achievement of a certain set goals.
Administration: This is the direction, co-ordination and control of many persons to achieve some objective.
Organization: In this work, organization is taken to mean a public enterprise which employs a large number of people as workers and posses those characteristics as any bureaucracy.
Effectiveness: This means ability to bring about the intended result. An organization is therefore, effective when it is able to achieve its sets goals and objectives.
Efficiency: This is synonymous with capability. It is the ability to perform duties well leading to producing a descried or satisfactory result. It could therefore, be said that efficiency leads to effectiveness.
Leadership: The process of influencing people to achieve certain objectives without using unduly coercive tactics.
Management: For this study, the term management is used to refer to human element at the helm of affairs in an organization.
1.10 Organization of the Study
This research work is organized in five chapters, for easy understanding, as follows. Chapter one is concern with the introduction, which consist of the (background of the study), statement of the problem, purpose of the study, research questions, significance of the study, scope of the study etc. Chapter two being the review of the related literature presents the theoretical framework, conceptual framework and other areas concerning the subject matter. Chapter three is a research methodology covers deals on the research design, area of the study, population of the study, sample and sampling techniques, methods of data collection, instruments for data collection, reliability of the instruments, validity of the instruments, distribution and retrieval of instruments and methods of data analysis. Chapter four concentrate on the data collection and analysis and presentation of finding. Chapter five gives summary, conclusion, and recommendations made of the study
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