Corrupt Practices and the Management of Public Primary Schools in Benue State of Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated corrupt practices and the management of public primary schools in Benue State of Nigeria. The study was guided by three research questions and three null hypotheses. Survey design was used for the study. The population comprised 20,023 teachers from 2,578 public primary schools in the state, out of which a sample of 1020 teachers from 36 public primary schools were proportionately selected from the three senatorial districts of Benue State as respondents. A 15-item questionnaire titled "Corrupt Practices and School Management Questionnaire (CPASMQ) was used for data collection. The data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions while chi-square (x²) test of goodness-of-fit was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that corrupt practices have significant influence on the provision of infrastructural facilities, the supply of instructional materials and the maintenance of school plant in public primary schools in Benue State of Nigeria. Based on the findings, it was recommended among other things that a monitoring team be set up by the Ministry of Education to visit schools regularly to ensure that proper execution of projects and that instructional materials supplied were effectively put into use to cater for the needs of the pupils and staff/teachers.