CHALLENGES OF STUDENT PARTICIPATION IN ADMINISTRATION OF ACHIMOTA SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL IN THE ACCRA METROPOLIS

ABSTRACT

Many school heads who work for meaningful student involvement in the running of their schools find that there are significant barriers to validating the opinions, ideas, knowledge, and experiences of students in order to improve their schools. These barriers can be seen as challenges that encourage students, teachers and administrators as well as schools to grow and flourish in new and exciting ways. This research seeks to identify some of the challenges that the students, school authority and staff of a large school such as Achimota face as the authorities adopt meaningful student involvement to overcome the hurdles of effective school administration. The study examined the particular arrangements put in place for students to actively participate in the day-to-day running of the school and ascertained the nature of the perceived challenges that confront both students and administration. The descriptive survey method was used for the study. Questionnaires were used to gather information from 290 student and 71 teachers and members of administration. Data collected from the responses from the questionnaire administered were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science. Among others the study discovered that the SRC and the Prefectorial Board were operational but ineffective and though students serve on some of the school committees they are not adequately involved in the decision making processes. On the basis of the findings it was recommended that the school authorities should put in place adequate mechanisms and organize regular fora for students to enable them relate issues that affect them directly to the authorities.