SCHOOL FUNDING POLICY AS AN EFFECTIVE TOOL FOR ENSURING EQUITY IN SECONDARY EDUCATION IN ANAMBRA STATE

Abstract

The main purpose of the study was to determine if school funding policy is an effective tool for ensuring equity in secondary education in Anambra State.  Two research questions guided the study. The descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised 266 public secondary school principals in Anambra State. The entire population was used without sampling because it was manageable. A self-developed validated questionnaire was used to collect data for the study. A pilot study involving 20 public secondary school principals in Enugu State was used to establish the reliability of the instrument with coefficient values of 0.81 and 0.70 were obtained for clusters B1 and B2 respectively with an overall reliability coefficient value of 0.76.   Mean and Standard deviation were used to answer the research questions. The finding of the study revealed that school fund allocation policy and school fund monitoring policies are effective tools for ensuring equity in secondary education in Anambra State. Based on these findings, the researcher recommended among others that Government at all levels should ensure that the existing school funding and monitoring policies are consistently and effectively implemented in all secondary schools.