Principals’ Administrative Process Strategies For The Achievement Of Quality Assurance In Secondary Schools In Kogi State

a very important role when it comes to the position of a principal. In any secondary school, a principal can either be male or female i.e  man  or  woman. Some critics are of the view that women (females) have a better charisma as far as the job of principalship is concerned. Another set of critics refuted their idea and came up with an assertion that men (male) have principalship proficiency in them naturally and therefore should be  considered a better gender for this profession than women. Other critics totally disagree with their conjecture, but opined that everyone is capable of becoming a principal; both men and women (male and female) provided they are qualified and have acquired a sound leadership and administrative experience. For the administrative processes to be effective in achieving quality assurance there is need to adopt some administrative process  strategies (Ivan, 2008).

Administrative process strategy is a concerned with shaping an organization in the right part towards the achievement of its goal. Some of  the administrative process strategies of the principals include planning strategy, organizing strategy, staff personnel strategy, coordinating strategy and budgeting strategy. These administrative strategies are pertinent in the achievement of quality assurance in secondary schools.

Quality assurance is a process of ensuring effective resource input, control, refining the processes and raising the standard of output in order to meet the set goals. Ayeni, (2012) opined that quality assurance in education is the efficient management, monitoring, evaluation and reviews of the resource inputs and transformation process (teaching and learning)  to  produce a quality output (students) that meets set standards and expectations of the society. Quality assurance in education aims at preventing quality problems and ensures that the products of the system conform to  the  expected standards. Thus, the quality of education is the degree of excellence of the output (students) which can be achieved through principals’ effective administrative strategy. Mckeown (2011) argues that “quality assurance strategy is about shaping the future “and is the human attempt to get to “desirable ends with available means”.

Quality assurance is an organization guarantee that the product or service it offers meets the accepted quality standards (Lopez, 2003). It is achieved by identifying what "quality" means in context; specifying methods by which its presence can be ensured; and specifying ways in which it can be measured to ensure conformity. Quality assurance is a component of quality management and it is focused on providing confidence so that quality requirements will be fulfilled (Flanna, 2008). It can be said to be Processes and procedures for ensuring that qualifications, assessment and programme delivery meet certain standards. Quality assurance relates to the achievement of educational program standards established by institutions, professional organizations, government, and/or standard-setting bodies established by government. Walklin (2002) defined quality assurance as the avoidance of non-performance by pre-empting failure through proper planning, execution, monitoring and evaluation. It is a way of managing an organization so that every job, every process, is implemented right at first time and always.

Quality assurance in the school system implies the ability of the educational institutions to meet the expectations of the users of manpower in relation to the quality of skills required by their outputs. It can be said to be the abilities of the schools to meet certain criteria relating to academic matters, staff – student ratios, staff development, physical facilities, funding, and adequate library facilities (Ajayi and Adegbesan, 2007). Quality assurance in the school system refers  to all the activities that are conducted  in order to achieve or maintain a certain acceptable quality level. It is an avoidance of defects in the education process. Cole (1996) opined  that  quality assurance in any educational institution indicates that students’ learning is well supported with adequate resources and that those actively involved both in school administration and teaching have clear job descriptions and know their job responsibilities. It involves a series of operational techniques and activities which include all the actions taken in order for the quality requirement to be met.

Quality assurance in education is a totality of the combination of some indispensable variables such as quality teachers, quality instructional materials and quality infrastructures (classrooms, seats, tables, chalkboards, etc.). Others include: favourable teacher/pupil ratio, favourable pupils/classroom ratio, and quality instructional supervision. Quality assurance means putting in place appropriate structures, legislations, supervision of personnel and materials in order to ensure that set minimum standards are attained, sustained and seen to have meaningful impact on the society. There seems to be a sharp decline in the quality of education system in most of the public schools in Kogi State. Indicators of such declining quality and wastage in the education system may include: high drop-out and failure rates, rampant examination malpractices, poor reading and writing skills among students at all levels. There is evidence of client reaction as many parents take their children to private schools within and outside the state.