Evaluating School Leadership in Material Resources Accountability in Zambian Secondary Schools

This paper examined the material resource accountability of 46 public secondary school head teachers in Zambia’s CopperBelt province. From an initial quantitative investigation involving ninety-two respondents who were randomly selected, the paper established that the main school leader practices for tracking resource utilization include asset registers, store ledgers, and vouchers. School leaders showed high levels of monitoring and controlling the economic usage of resources at 86%. (88% for stationery, 91% for water, and 79% for electricity). School leaders demonstrated high levels of accountability (86%) by adhering to laid down policies and procedures. Nonetheless, there are weaknesses at the end-user level in departments and sections where there is inadequate documentation and inefficient use of resources. In addition, there are school manager failures to accurately document goods and materials received (15%) and uneconomic use of resources (stationery, water, and electricity) at 14%.