School finance management structure and effective delivery of 21^st century secondary education in Cross River State

Abstract

The study examined school finance management structure and effective delivery of 21^st century secondary education in Cross River State. The aims were to find out the relationship between availability of school finance management structure and the delivery of 21^st century education in secondary schools, ascertain whether the structures for the mobilization of school funds, allocation of school funds, school finance accountability exist in secondary schools, and determine the extent of delivery of 21^st century education in secondary schools in Cross River State. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. 4 research questions and 1 hypothesis were formulated for the study. The population of the study comprised all the 251 Principals from the 251 public secondary schools in the three Educational Zones in Cross River State. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics (simple percentages, mean and standard deviation) were used to answer the research questions, while Pearson Product Moment correlation Statistics (r) was used to analyze the data for the hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. Result obtained showed that there is a significant relationship between availability of school finance management structure and effective delivery of 21^st century secondary education in Cross River State. It was also found that there are adequate sources of funds available to secondary schools in the State; there are no formal structures for funds allocation and accountability in the schools and the level of delivery of 21^st century education in secondary schools is low. Based on this result, it was recommended that there should be formal structures for funds allocation and finance accountability to ensure effective delivery of skilledbased education in the State.

Keywords: School finance, finance management, finance accountability, school finance structure, funds mobilization, funds allocation