SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS’UTILIZATION OF MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR ADMINISTRATIVE EFFECTIVENESS IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN OGOJA EDUCATION ZONE OF CROSS RIVER STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Education, as the pillar of every nation, is more effective in imparting knowledge when relevant information is applied and utilized at every stage of the management process. Therefore, for secondary school administrators’ to be effective, they must be proficient in using Management Information Systems (MIS) to improve every stage of the administrative process. Based on this premise, the study investigated school administrators' utilization of management information system for administrative effectiveness in public secondary schools in Ogoja Education Zone of Cross River State, Nigeria.Two specific purposes were formulated and two research questions guided the study. Descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The population of this study comprised all the 90 principals distributed across all the public secondary schools in Ogoja Education Zone. A 16 items researcher developed instrument titled; School Administrators' Utilization of Management Information System Questionnaire (SAUMISQ) was used for data collection. The instrument was structured on a four rating scale of Strongly Agree (SA), Agree (A), Disagree (D) and Strongly Disagree (SD) weighted 4, 3, 2 and 1 respectively. The instrument was face validated by three research experts. The Cronbach alpha was used to determine the reliability of the instrument which yielded a high reliability coefficient value of 0.84. Data were analyzed using mean percentages and standard deviation. The findings revealed among others that principals’ utilize management information system for financial resource management in secondary schools by:maintaining accurate financial records with spreadsheet software, creating the school budget using a centralized database, handling fee payments through the Remita online payment system, saving all financial data on storage devices and generating academic reports with a learning management system.The study concluded that principals’ utilization of management information system enhances administrative effectiveness in public secondary schools in Ogoja Education Zone. Thus, the study recommended among others that Secondary school administrators should also be exposed to the use of specific MIS software applications that are often used for financial transaction in order to avert constant financial loss, thus enhancing financial accuracy and accountability in the school administration.