COUNSELLING STRATEGIES ADOPTED BY PRINCIPAL FOR CONFLICT MANAGEMENT IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ENUGU STATE, NIGERIA.
The main purpose of this study was to determine the counselling strategies that are adopted by secondary school principals for conflict management in secondary schools in Enugu State. Design adopted for the study was descriptive survey design. three research questions and three hypotheses guided the study. This study was carried out in Enugu State. The population for the study consisted of all the 295 public secondary school principals in Enugu State as at the time of the study. Due to the manageable size of the population for this study, the entire population, 295 public secondary school principals was used as sample for the study. Categorized by principal’s gender, the sample is made up of 170 male and 125 female principals. The instrument for data collection was a Questionnaire on Counselling Strategies Adopted by Secondary School Principals for Conflict Management in Secondary Schools in Enugu State (QCSSSPCMSSE). It is a 45-item self-structured questionnaire. The QCSSSPCMSSE was constructed by the researcher and validated by three experts, two in Guidance and Counselling, one in Measurement and Evaluation Unit of Department of Maths and Computer Education. Reliability coefficients obtained for the various parts of the instrument were; Cluster A = 70; Cluster B = 70; Cluster C= 76; The overall reliability coefficient value stood at .71, obtained through Cronbach Alpha reliability. 295 copies of the questionnaire were administered to the respondents by the researcher and four research assistants. Direct delivery and retrieval system was used. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while ANOVA was used to test the hypotheses at .05 significant level. Major findings of the study revealed among others, that Enugu State secondary schools principals adopted counselling strategies for conflict management to a low extent. The counselling strategies adopted by male and female secondary school principals in Enugu State did not differ significantly. Recommendations made in the study included that relevant boards, agencies, parastatals and Ministry of Education should organize conferences for conflict management.
Keywords: Counselling, Strategies, Management, Conflict Principal
