SCHOOL INDUSTRY COLLABORATION AND SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ENUGU STATE

The main purpose of the study is to examine the relationship between school-industry collaboration and school improvement in public secondary schools in Enugu State. Two research questions guided the study and two null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The correlational research design was adopted. The population of the study comprised 293 public secondary school principals in Enugu State. The entire population of the study was used for the study because it was manageable. Two structured validated questionnaires were used for data collection. The instrument was pilot tested and the application of Cronbach Alpha reliability method on data collected yielded reliability coefficient values of 0.84 and 0.87 for Clusters A and B respectively with overall reliability of 0.86 for QSIC and 0.89 for QSI. Pearson correlation statistics was used to answer the research questions and test the hypotheses. Findings of the study revealed that there is a high positive relationship between school-industry curriculum development collaboration and school improvement. Finding also showed that there is a very high positive relationship between school-industry collaborations on infrastructural developments and school improvement in public secondary schools in Enugu State. Findings also show that the relationships were significant. The study concludes that school-industry collaboration has a significant positive relationship with school improvement in Enugu State. The researcher recommended therefore that the Enugu State Ministry of Education in conjunction with the Post Primary Schools Management Board (PPSMB) should prioritise the active involvement of industry experts in curriculum design, review, and updating processes. It was also recommended that the Enugu State Ministry of Education should develop and institutionalise clear policy guidelines that encourage and regulate school–industry collaborations on infrastructural development.