UNIVERSITY OF LAGOS

SCHOOL OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

PRACTICUM EXERCISE REPORT (EDA 714)

AT

LAGOS STATE EDUCATION DISTRICT -VI

BY

OLANREWAJU OLUWAFEYIKEMI

(179033050)

OF THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT,

UNIVERSITY OF LAGOS.

LAGOS STATE

JANUARY 2019.
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Table of Contents

Introduction………………………………………………… 1

What is Practicum………………………………………………. 1

Why is Practicum Important…………………………………… 3

Education District VI-Oshodi………………………………….... 5

My Practicum Experience………………………………………. 8

Highlights of my Practicum Experience………………………... 8

Decision Making and Administration style……………………... 10

Problems Encountered in the District …………………………… 13

Conclusion and Recommendation…………………………………… 17

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INTRODUCTION

What is a Practicum?

Practicums (also called internships or work placement programs) are designed to provide

students with practical work experience. They emphasize the importance of learning by doing.

They’re where students can transfer their educational knowledge to actual work. Practicums

can also open many opportunities to network and make important contacts within the industry.

However, not many students truly realize the importance of practicums. When it comes to

choosing a school, the first thing people typically want to know about is the cost of tuition. But

it’s a good idea to think about your education as an investment for your future. Before enrolling

in a school, it’s vital to ensure you graduate with more than just an expensive piece of paper.

In the case of Educational Management, the practicum is organized to assist the students to

gain experience and also expose them to the actual practice of the numerous theories and

concepts, skills and principles that might have been studied during the course work. It is,

therefore, an experiential skill-building course in educational management.

Why is a Practicum Important?

A decade ago, simply having a good academic standing was enough to qualify you for a decent

job. Today, good grades just don’t cut it. When it comes to securing employment, most

companies want to make sure an individual can put what he or she has learnt to practice.

Practicums allow students to earn real hands-on experience with the best in the industry.

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Practicum helps to acquaint students with all aspects of administration in educational

institutions. It is an enriching experience for the student in areas of leadership, decision –

making, planning, organizing, staffing, coordination and possibly budgeting where and when

the need arises. The practicum period will also assist the student to exhibit some personal

characteristics and qualities expected of an Administrator/Manager. Such qualities include

maturity, tactfulness, intelligence, kindness, sympathy, honesty, being considerate,

accommodating and impartial as the case may be. Students are, then therefore required to

observe, study and evaluate the educational administrators/ managers in the establishments that

they are undertaking the practicum in their activities and also to promote the quality of

educational management in these establishments.

Practicums allows students to earn real-world work experience and this makes the transition

between graduation and employment is seamless.

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EDUCATION DISTRICT VI-OSHODI.

This district is one of the six education districts in Lagos state. It consists three zones namely:

1. Ikeja

2. Mushin

3. Oshodi/isolo.

These zones hold the 104 schools (public junior and senior secondary schools)

The various departments in this district are as follows:

1. The administration and human resources department which has the following units

under it:

a. Workforce, planning and recruitment: This unit is the life blood of the entire

administration and human resources department. The have the following

functions

 Posting of staff in the District

 Redeployment of staff

 Posting of Corps members to the different schools in District.

 Preparing Corps members Monthly Clearance.

 Posting of N-Power staff to the different Schools in the District.

 Keeping a database of all the staff in the District, both teaching and non-teaching.

 Ensuring easy retrieval of staff data/information.

 Ensuring that the Schools in the District are not short of Teachers.

 Ensuring equal distribution of staff in the different schools to a certain level.

 Posting of students on Industrial Training, SIWES, and Practicum etc. to the different

departments in the District.

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 b. Learning and development

c. Employee relations

d. General administration (store and records)

e. Human resource measures and accountability.

2. The Accounts department. Units here include:

a. Fund unit

b. Revenue unit

c. Financial information systems unit.

3. Schools administration department. Some units under this department are:

a. School placement and deployment (students, teachers, principals)

b. Guidance and counselling

c. Quality Assurance.

d. Variation unit.

4. Co-curricular science and technology department. Units under this department are:

a. Schools sports

b. Literary and debating

c. JETS

d. Cultural

5. School support and special duties department.

6. The tutor general/permanent secretary.

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It is necessary to mention that all the above name departments (apart from the tutor general)

are headed by directors and their major function to provide leadership oversee the day to day

operations at the various units under each department and give periodic reports to the tutor

general.

Education District VI Oshodi is headed by the tutor general by the name, Mrs O.O. Onadipe.

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My Practicum Exercise Experience

I reported at the education district VI office on the 12th of November 2018 by 8:00am, and was

warmly received by the director of administration and human resources, Mr.J.F.Ademola. I

with others posted to the district were taken round the various departments by Mr. Ademola,

at every department, he would introduce us to the director in charge letting them know we were

undergoing practicum at the district for a six week duration. I received an acceptance letter into

the district after I was asked to rewrite a formal application to undergo the practicum exercise

in the district. The letter was treated and I received an acceptance letter, which carried my first

posting at the co-curricular science and technology department. Mr. Ademola made sure to

reiterate that the exercise would be rotational and we would be moved round if not all but most

of the departments in the district. Throughout the duration of the practicum exercise I was

posted to three units namely:

1. Co-curricular science and technology

2. School support and special duties

3. Administration and human resources.

Some major highlights of my practicum experience are as

follows:

1. In my first posting in co –curricular science and technology, which is headed by Mrs

Adigun, I was thrilled to have been a part of the rehearsals I preparation for the district

Christmas carol. Students and teachers were drawn from all the 104 schools in the

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 district, and rehearsals held at the district office. The rehearsals involved both western

Christmas carols and cultural ones. Also there were rehearsals for the state wide cultural

competition display and district VI was given the Yoruba culture to display in areas of

dressing, poetry and songs. It was interesting to watch and I was able to chip in my bit

to ensure that the program was a success.

2. Also I was privileged to interact with a certain NGO who was proposing a sports skill

program for the students in the district. This exercise was taken on by the sports unit of

the department headed by Mr.Josiah.

3. In school support and special duties, headed by Mrs Aremu, a major highlight for me

was the school visits. I was on a team that visited Ransome Kuti Memomrial secondary

School, Jibowu. In this school, I was applauded by the head of the team for noticing a

discrepancy between the number of JSS1 students sent to the school and the number

reported on paper. Also, I immediately noticed that there was no attendance register for

13 weeks in the first term.

4. Also in school support and special duties unit, I was privileged to work on analyzing

WASSCE results of the students who wrote the examination in the district and to

suggest ways by which the results can improve. The suggestions was well received by

the director.

5. In Administration and Human Resources department headed by Mr. Ademola, I was

given the opportunity to work on the listings and postings of individuals who had been

posted to the district for work under the Federal government’s N-Power initiative. I

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 probed to find out persons who have come to report at the district and persons who

hadn’t. I sent mails and placed calls to those who had not made any appearance seeking

reasons why they had not made an appearance at the district to obtain permission to be

absent or seek approval to be exempted from the initiative. I also was privileged to

work on some maternity leave files and issue a letter granting maternity leave to a

female member of staff in one of the schools in the district.

Decision Making and Administrative Style in

Education District VI Oshodi.

What is decision making?

This seems like an easy question, but what if we took a moment and think about how

we would answer. What process do we go through when making a decision as an

individual? How about when decisions must be made as part of a group?

Decision making can be defined as the cognitive process which results in the selection

of a course of action among several alternative scenarios. Your decision making style

can be intellectual or emotional, rational or irrational.

The rational decision maker follows four steps to making a decision.

a. Identify the problem

b. Generate multiple possible solutions for the problem

c. Select the solution deemed most likely to solve the problem

d. Implement the solution and evaluate its effectiveness

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In Education district VI- Oshodi, the decision style that is mostly practiced as seen in the units

I worked in is the Collective Group Decision Making Style and the Democratic

Administration Style. The collective group decision making style is one that entails the leader

involving the members of the organization in all aspects of the decision making process, but

makes the final decision alone. The leader deliberately asks and encourages group members to

participate by giving their ideas, perceptions, knowledge, and information concerning the

situation. This brings to light other perspectives on the situation although the leader maintains

complete control of the final decision.

In this group decision making style, the leader is completely responsible for the decision and

the results, positive or negative. There are advantages to this style, such as the involvement and

participation of the group. This style of group decision making requires the leader to be an

excellent communicator, as well as an excellent listener. This gives the leader an accurate

understanding of the situation and allows for better overall decision making. The disadvantages

collective group decision making are that this can be a very slow decision making process and

it offers less security due to the number of people involved in the process.

The Democratic Administration style on the other hand can be useful when a quick decision is

needed utilizing a minimum amount of group participation. In this style of group decision

making the leader gives up ownership and control of a decision and allows the group to vote.

As the name implies, majority vote will decide what action is taken.

The disadvantage of this style can be a lack of individual responsibility. There is no one person

that can claim responsibility for the decision reached by the group. Since there is not a

requirement for a consensus it opens up the possibility that someone will deny responsibility

because they voted against the group’s decision.

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I say this is the most common style of decision making style in the district because, being

a government owned organization, the processes of work have already been laid out, so

the leaders are just to ensure that the rules are followed to the letter, in the event that

there has to be a unanimous decision, or an urgent one the leader adopts these

aforementioned styles.

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Problems encountered in Education District VI-

Oshodi.

Just as any organization has its setbacks, there are major setbacks and problems that I noticed

in my 6 weeks of being at the district and they are listed below:

1. Poor office ambience.

The look of the office, the arrangement of office furniture, the appearance of most of the staff

members was I must say very demoralizing. I believe, this singular fact will affect the work

productivity of the people working there.

A possible solution to the above is for the people to understand how the work environment

affects their outcome and employ a better maintenance culture in keeping office equipment. In

plain terms, they must clear the clutter.

2. Absence of clear direction.

Lack of direction is very common among government owned organizations and the district is

not exempted. This problem stems from two root causes:

The leader or leaders rarely discuss or chart a deliberate direction or strategy for the future, or

they fail to communicate a coherent message about the strategy to all members of the

organization.

There are many activities to execute and the organization lacks the alignment needed to gain

the traction necessary to help the organization transform, adapt, and shape the future—

activities that would ensure the organization’s long-term, sustained growth. In short, too many

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functions and individuals lack an understanding of how they fit or why they matter. As a result,

people become complacent, content to just show up, take care of today’s business, and hope

that someone is in the wheelhouse steering the ship.

A possible solution to the above problem is that people would only contribute heavily to places

where they feel they matter and are important. The teams must be carried along in matters that

affect their welfare especially.

2. Difficulty blending multiple personalities into a cohesive and unified team.

This is an enormous challenge. People’s personalities vary widely, and the diversity of

backgrounds, opinions, views, and experiences can cause challenges for teams. This creates a

unique set of potential issues and opportunities.

If you can get people to come into alignment and support common objectives, a diverse team

of leaders can produce amazing results, take on the demands of customers, and meet the threat

of competitors. However, if leaders stay in their silos, protect their own “turf,” fail to share

information, refuse to collaborate on shared problems, or lack the ability to think with an

entrepreneurial mindset, the organization will under-produce.

3. Failure to develop key competencies and behaviors.

In my 6 weeks at the district, I encountered a lot of hardworking people who have good

intentions. However, despite their experience in the industry, their technical talent, and the

subject-matter expertise that many of these leaders bring to the table, creating a high-

performance organization is often still out of reach.

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Nearly everyone I met, including senior leaders, had at least one (and in some cases, multiple)

leadership weaknesses. Sometimes leaders are aware of their behavioral shortcomings; in other

cases, they are blind to their leadership deficits. People inside the organization are often afraid

to candidly say what they think, and helping enormously successful leaders with their Achilles

heels can be tricky.

Leading and managing any organization is a complex task that requires a unique mix of skills

and Education District VI-Oshodi is no exception. Leaders have to utilize their natural

strengths, but they also have to search relentlessly for ways to close their own performance

gaps and improve their behavior. Without continuous improvement, an organization’s

capabilities will be severely limited. In short, if leaders don’t constantly raise their game, they

will suck all the energy and employee engagement out of an organization. Leaders need to be

constantly aware of and working on their personal opportunities for improvement.

4. Poor communication and the wrong attitude to feedback.

In the district VI, there seems to be two extremes in this area: Either people do everything in

their power to avoid confronting others and holding them accountable or they relish any

opportunity to chew people out, belittle them, and crush their spirits. But there are some people

who will speak their minds no matter the person(s) or circumstance(s) involved.

Without a culture of openness, feedback, and coaching, organizations will struggle to grow.

Many teams try to muddle through this somehow, enduring the bully or trying to guess what

others want and need from them. Hence, there has to be a culture of openness where people

can air their disappointments without fear and in the utmost professional way.

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5. Lack of awareness.

Building a solid organization takes hard work and a keen awareness of the culture and the aim

of what is been done, or how it will help to shape the future of education in Lagos state.

Unfortunately, while they’re busy focusing on their many necessary operational distractions,

many managers take their eye off the teamwork ball. This means that communication suffers

and leaders get preoccupied and fail to recognize people, celebrate progress, build the talent

pipeline, or invest time reviewing processes, practices, and better ways of working across

functions. People then become disengaged, feel marginalized, and lose focus and commitment.

Hence people must be made to understand how their contributions are needed in the grand

scheme of things.

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Conclusion and Recommendation.

The practicum exercise is a very welcome development as it helps to experience first-hand how

educational management and decisions are made.

I would like to recommend that the exercise be continued and the timing of the exercise be

considered better, so as to better factor it into the school’s calendar of events. This becomes

necessary because, the time I was posted to the district, the officials kept saying, “why did you

come at this time?” Because they have peak and off peak periods, the practicum exercise fell

within their off peak period. This made it a tad bit challenging to be able to see and experience

first-hand how some things are done.

Attached with this report is my clearance letter from the district.

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