THE FACTORS THAT MILITATE AGAINST EFFECTIVE ADMINISTRATION OF SOME SELECTED SECONDARY SCHOOL IN ENUGU URBAN

ABSTRACT

Ineffective management of government owned companies are gradually becoming alarming in Nigeria. These government owned companies has continued to witness increased low productivity and other vices that are immoral to the growth of our economy while government at all levels are busy working out strategies to check this ugly situations, the problems has continued unabated.

So, this study has looked at the problems of effective management in government owned companies using Nigeria Coal Corporation, Enugu as the case study.

This project looked into ways of preventing or reducing the incidence of poor management of government owned companies in examining the problems, the researcher used both primary and secondary data. The primary sources of data includes – the use of questionnaire and oral interview while the secondary sources of data includes – textbooks, articles, magazines and other relevant write ups in various journals. 

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1       BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

            The term effective management refers to the need for an organization to achieve its desired goals through prudent management of resources at its disposal.

            What is management? The analysis of management knowledge is facilitated by a useful and clear organization of that knowledge. Management knowledge is organized around the basic functions of managers, thus, planning, organizing, staff, leading and controlling.

            Some scholars look at management as a total and universal activity separation from the managerial activities of a business or government agency while others look at management from operational point of view.

            Managing is essential in all organized co-operation as well as at all levels of organization in an enterprise. It is the functions not only of the corporation managing director and the army general but also of the shop supervisor and the company commander.

            One will find no basic distribution between managers and executives, administrators or supervisors to be sure a given situation may differ considerably between various levels in our organization or various types of enterprise, the scope of authority held may vary, the types of problems dealt with may be considerably different and a person in a managerial role may also be salesman, engineer or financial. But the fact remains that as managers, all who obtain results by establishing an environment for effective group endeavour undertake the same functions.

            Even so, those in managerial role seldom devote all their time and talents to managing and the organization roles which individuals fill almost invariably involve unmanagerial  duties one has only to look at the duties and performances associated with, perhaps the most complex managerial role in our society that is, that of the president of Nigeria to realize that much of his work is non-managerial even in business corporations, company managing directors found themselves doing a considerable amount of non-managerial jobs. And as one goes down the organization ladder, the number of non-managerial duties tend to increase. Nevertheless, this fact of life should not detract in any way from the key significance of managing.

            The goal of all managers, non-business executives sometimes say that, top business managers have it easy, that is, that profit is their goal. Profit is only a measure of the surplus of business income over cost. It was pointed out earlier that, in a very real sense, the goal of all managers must be surpluses. Their task is to establish the environment for group effort in such a way that individuals will contribute to group objectives with the least amount of such inputs as money, time, effort, discomfort and materials. By the very definitions of the task, this becomes the goal of managers but if they were ever to know whether the efforts of those for whom they are responsible are effective and efficient, whether they attaining goals with least cost they obviously must know what group goals are. Not only must these goals be known to managers and preferably to all those for whom they are responsible, but they should also be known in  a clear way otherwise, managers can never measure either their own effectiveness and efficiency or the effectiveness and efficiency of their group.

            The corporation Chief executive, the MILAD of a state, the Chief medical director of a hospital, the bishop, the director of school, the class rep. etc all as managers have the same kind of goals. The purpose of their enterprise or their department may vary and these purposes may be more difficult to define in one situation than in another, but their basic managerial goal remains the same.

            Effective management is all about the application of knowledge to realities in order to attain desired results. Effective management has been and will continue to be a problem in government owned companies, unless we start to use system approach in managing our companies.

            Most government companies have failed because of non-use of system approach in their management.

            It is true that we are practicing mixed economy in this country, that is, where private enterprises are existing alongside the public enterprises of Nigeria coal corporation and that public enterprises major objectives is not to make profit but these companies were established with tax payers money and the expect optimum use of their money. And these companies were established in most cases to provide services to the people but due to poor management which can be attributed to so many variables.

            These companies have been provided with the necessary inputs (in some cases) but it is the management task to transform the inputs in an effective and efficient manner to produce output of course, the transformation process can be viewed from different perspective. Thus, one could focus on such enterprise functions as finance production, personnel and marketing; different schools of thought look at transformation in from different angles. More scholars are coming up and the beat goes on.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEMS

            Effective management is one of the good goals of every organization, where there are no good or effective management, there is bound to be problem. Unfortunately thought of this effective management has not been seen in NCC Enugu hence the problems of inadequate findings obstacles equipment, interference from parent ministries and such like things. The researchers therefore want to investigate into these problems to know why this ugly situation should not be stopped for the effective management of the firm.

1.4       RESEARCH QUESTIONS

            The following research questions were asked during the course of this research work: -

(1)          What is the estimated labour force and how many of these are managers, supervisors and junior staff in your corporation?  

(2)          Does poor management lead to loss of funds?

(3)          Does poor management reduce public confidence in government owned companies?

(4)          Does poor management of government owned companies effect general economy of the nation?

(5)          Do you think optimum uses are being made of the resources available to your company?

(6)          Can your company be better managed if effective and qualified personnel man the key positions?

1.5         SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY

Ineffective management in its owned companies is a problem that have been disturbing several administration in this country as well as tax payers whose resources (finance) wee used in establishing such firms. Several attempts have been made in the past to find solution to this natural problem, but it still persist. Government will derive great assistance from the work in detecting ineffective management in its companies and ways of controlling them. This, they can achieve by adopting and implementing the various suggestions and recommendations made in this study in their management control system.

The research will also be of immense benefits for all these students and scholars carrying out research is poor management government owned companies.

Therefore, this research work will be for the mutual benefits of government, students, prospective shareholders in government companies, industrial watches and the general public.

1.6         THE SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This research work was conducted and specifically carried out on Nigeria Coal Corporation (NCC) Enugu.

The aim of this scope is intended to look at NCC and what have been the problems of effective management in the organization. This work will equally offer suggestions on how best to have effective management NCC Enugu.

1.8       DEFINITION OF TERMS

(a)       Pressure – force exerted continuously on something or against something.

(b)       Fraud – Criminal act or deception

(c)        Terrifying – filling with fear

(d)       Perpetration – Be guilty of something

(e)       Subordinate – people working under somebody

(f)        Optimum – Best or most favourable

(g)       Return on investment – this is something, that is dividend, interest an investor expect to get from his investment.

(h)       Shareholders – people who contribute money to establish or run a business.

(i)         Negligence – Failure to take proper care

(j)         Financial year – This is usually 12 calendar months in which most companies prepare their accounts.