Peace Education Innovation and Head Teachers’ Administrative Effectiveness in Public Basic Schools in Edo State

Abstract

The school system prepares people to achieve economic upliftment and make them face social challenges in life. It also prepares people to understand the values of life in relevance to peaceful living. The school curriculum and effective school administration is considered a very potent tool for solving socio-economic, political and security problems faced by many societies in Africa, Nigeria in particular. The study therefore investigates the relationship between peace education innovation and head teachers’ administrative effectiveness in public basic schools in Edo State. The study was a descriptive survey adopting correlational design. The population of the study comprised all the 1,228 teachers in the 142 public basic schools in the seven local government areas of Edo South Senatorial District, Edo State, Nigeria. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select 14 schools and 123 teachers for the study. Data was collected through self-designed instrument titled: “Peace Education and School Management Questionnaire (PESMQ)”. The Pearson Product Moment Correlation (Pearson r) was used to analyze data collected for hypothesis one while fisher’s z-test statistics was used to analyze data collected with respect to hypothesis two. The study found that there was a significant relationship between peace education and effective administration of basic schools in Edo State while a no significant difference in relationship exists between peace education innovation and effective management of basic education in Edo State based on gender. It was therefore recommended that the teaching of peace education in subjects like civic education, Religion and National values should be given prominence in the schools’ curricula. Also, school administrators should be effective in the control and management of students’ disciplinary behaviour.