ABSTRACT

 The study was carried out to determined the influence of community involvement on the effective administration of secondary schools in Andoni LGA in Rivers state, Nigeria. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. A sample of 66 respondents consisting of 18 Principals and 48 community leaders were drawn from a population of 89 respondents (31 principals and 58 Community leaders) using Two-stage sampling procedure. The instrument for data collection was a 31 item researcher developed questionnaire titled: Community Involvement and Effective School Administration Questionnaire (CIESAQ). The instruments was validated by three experts, two in Educational Management and one in Measurement and Evaluation, all in College of Education, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia State. The internal consistency of the items in the instrument was determined using Cronbach Alpha statistic which yielded coefficients of 0.88. Three research assistants helped in data collection. Out of the 66 copies of instrument administered 53 copies of the instrument representing 98% rate ofreturn were well filled by the respondents and used for data analysis. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the five research questions raised for the study while t-test analysis was used to test the five null hypotheses that guided the study at 0.05 level of significance. The findings showed among others that community involvement in staff personnel and discipline maintenance in schools influence effective administration of secondary schools to a high extent while community involvement in provision of infrastructure in the schools as well as in the school funding influence effective administration ofsecondary schools in Andoni LGA in Rivers state to a very high extent. The study therefore, concluded that community involvement influence the effective administration ofsecondary schools in Andoni LGA in Rivers state to a high extent. It was recommended among others that principals of secondary schools should allow host communities to be involved in the personnel administration ofsecondary schools.