Strengthening private sector participation in the development of secondary education in Rivers State

Abstract

This study examined strategies for strengthening private sector participation in the development of secondary education in Rivers State. Three research questions and three hypotheses were used for the study. The descriptive survey research design was used for this study. The population of the study consisted of all the two hundred and fifty-eight (258) public secondary schools in Rivers State and selected private cin Rivers State. The population that was drawn from the companies consisted of 52 staff of Human Resource Development Department from Shell; 44 from Total; 33 from Agip; and 20 from Chevron; which amounted to 149 personnel from the four registered industries in Rivers State. This gave a total population of 407. The sample size for the study was four hundred and seven (407) principals and selected private companies in Rivers State, representing 100% of the population served as respondents. Census sampling technique was used for the study. A 10-item questionnaire titled: “Private Sector Participation in the Development of Secondary Education Questionnaire” (SPPDSEQ) was used for data collection. Mean, standard deviation and rank order were used to answer the research questions while the z-test were employed to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The result amongst others revealed that rationale for private sector participation in the development of secondary education in Rivers State is to create employment opportunity for school leavers through expansion of educational provision and fostering development of technical and entrepreneurial studies that would help to create new jobs. Strategies for strengthening private sector participation include governments to create sound policy for private sector to render meaningful financial support to education, establish mechanisms to solicit funds from diaspora and create conducive conditions that will bring private sector closer to the schools. It was recommended that the administrators of secondary education institutions should strive to establish functional frameworks and act to ensure credibility in their operations so as to encourage private sector to fully participate in funding secondary education by providing teachers with grant to attend to their medical challenges.