Conflict management practices in senior high schools – Ashanti Mampong Municipality

Abstract

The study intended to investigate effects of conflict on the administration of Senior High Schools in the Ashanti Mampong Municipality. The study was guided by four research questions. The descriptive research design was adopted for the study. A sample of 72 teachers and 133 students were randomly selected to deliberate on the issues. The instruments used for data collection were two self-administered questionnaires. Data collected were analysed manually and electronically whereby the electronic analysis was done by using the Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS). The main analytical tools used were descriptive statistics with emphasis on frequency and percentages. The findings of the study showed that conflicts emanated from students, teachers and school heads. It was also seen that conflicts have negative and positive effects on the schools. The strategy mostly used to deal with the conflicts was avoidance. Besides this strategy, compromising, competition, collaborating, accommodating, expansion of resources, arbitration and changing of individuals were also used. The most effective strategies to use are avoidance, compromising, accommodating, collaborating and expansion of resources. The conclusion is that at any point in time, an effective conflict resolution strategy would depend on the relative circumstances. It was recommended that school heads should adopt a non authoritative approach to decision making so that teachers would in turn give them needed cooperation. Besides, they must ensure that preventive mechanisms are implemented to reduce the effects of conflicts.