Challenges facing principals in newly opened secondary schools in ebonyi state

This study is geared towards the determination of the challenges facing principals in newly opened secondary schools in Ebonyi state of Nigeria. The study is a descriptive survey research work carried out in Ebonyi state, south eastern Nigeria. The study was guided by two research questions and one hypothesis, all derived from the purpose of the study and the literature. The population of the study comprises a total of 340 secondary schools. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select a sample size of 36 secondary schools which is about 10% of the entire population. An instrument titled ‘‘Challenges of Principals of Newly Opened Secondary School Scale ’’ (CPNOSSS) was used to generate data. The face and content validation of the instrument was carried out by the appropriate experts. A reliability index of 0.80 was obtained using Cronbach Alpha tools. Direct delivery method was used to administer the instrument. Frequency tables, means and standard deviations were used in answering the research questions, while Z-test was used to test the hypothesis. Based on the analysis of the data collected, the following findings were made to be the challenges: inadequate fund,shortage of qualified teacher ,challenges of low enrollment, problem of office space/classroom, inadequate library provision, insufficient desk/furniture provision, challenges of accreditation, security problem, problem of land space ,laboratory provision, challenges of registration, sanitary provision by the school and sourcing of instructional materials. Recommendations were made, which include among others, proper funding of the schools and leadership training programs for the principals.