Abstract:
This study was designed to investigate the assessment of school principals’ mentorship of subordinates in Imo state secondary schools. Five research questions and five hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The study adopted descriptive survey research design. The population for the study comprised of 558 vice principals and 5,135 teachers making of up 5693. Sample for the study comprised 514 teachers and 56 vice principals. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire titled school principals mentorship of subordinates questionnaire. The instrument was faced validated by three experts, two from Education Administration and Planning and one from Measurement and Evaluation, all from the Department of Educational Foundations University of Nigeria Nsukka. The questionnaires were trial tested and cronback Alpha reliability test was used to determine the internal consistency of the instrument and this yielded reliability co-efficient (0.79). Data were analysed using mean and standard deviation to answer research questions and t-test statistics was used to test the null hypotheses formulated at 0.05 level of significance. Based on the findings among which is that the overall mean values indicates that the opinion of vice principals and teachers with regards to principals exposure of subordinates to instructional leadership was to a great extent. It was recommended that adequate principals’ mentorship strategies should be adopted in secondary schools in Imo State to ensure effectiveness. These mentorship strategies include instructional leadership, fostering friendliness, keeping good school community relations, supporting staff career development and school discipline. This could be achieved by organizing seminars and workshops to enable principals imbibe the mentorship skills in the day to day running of their schools.
