Principals' leadership style and supervision as correlates of academic achievement in junior school certificate examination (JSCE) in Oyo state, Nigeria

Abstract

"The concept of leadership style has been considered a relevant tool in business mangement as good leadership style drives-the success of an organization. It is only recently that the concept has been embraced in the education sector as a way of examining the behavior of principals vis-a-vis the success of tiie school they oversee. The school system is however been increasingly confronted with many complex problems, such as the seemingly or perceived falling standards of academic -achievement; increasing rates of indiscipline, examination malpractices, cultism and so on. These and other problems pose great challenges to school leadership and the resultant supervision of school, which keep the system constantly on track for the maintenance of standards. This study, thus investigated the extent to which principals' leadership style and the resultant quality of supervision determine academic success in ]SCE in Oyo state, Nigeria. It also investigated the extent to which the principals' demographic factors, such as age, gender, academic qualification and years of experience contribute to the students' academic achievement at the JSCE. Survey design wasused in the study. The JSSIII students during the years 2008-2010 constituted the population for the study. A sample of twelve schools whose principals had been there for at least three years, from each of the six educational zones in the state was purposively selected. A principal's questionnaire that measures the leadership style and quality of supervision was administered and JSCE results in English Language and Mathematics in those three years were obtained from the selected schools. Data were analysed by using mean, standard deviation, Pearson moment correlation and multiple regression. Results showed that principal's years of experience was positively related to students' success in JSCE, in both English language and Mathematics. The supervision by the principal was found to be predictive of students' success in JSCE in Mathematics only. In conclusion, there is bound to be improvement in acedemic achievement of students at the JSCE if quality supervision is enhanced and the principal is highly knowledgeable and experienced. The various levels of government should therefore ensure that quality supervision is enhanced in schools and qualified principals are at the helm of affairs."