Assessing the Effects of Regimented Administrative Structure of Education on Pupils Academic Performance of Basic Schools in Military Barracks, Ghana

Over the last five years, there has been a downward trend in the BECE performance by pupils in the Basic schools of military barracks in Ghana. The military high command has been concerned about the current performance of pupils in the BECE, and the responsibility lies with the Directorate of Education of the Ghana Armed forces to undertake all efforts at reversing the tide. The study is predicated upon the need to explore all possible causes of a consistent downward trend of BECE performance over the past five years. It is speculated that in the case of the Armed Forces schools, the quality of education could either be significantly enhanced or diminished by the peculiarity of the administration. Thus, the study quantitatively examined the place of military culture as a part of the administration and how the phenomenon impacts academic performance. The findings revealed that not only does military culture impact teacher work output, but the coercive nature of the relationship between the Educational Officers and civilian teaching staff is detrimental to the academic environment. Therefore, this paper recommends that the coercive administrative approach be modified to allow for a much more cooperative and social approach, which would create a conducive and free environment for academic work and consequently improve academic performances.


Introduction
The need for prudent management of the education system is emphasized in many circles because education is considered as the bedrock of sustainable development (Anamuah-Mensah, 2010). As such, some scholarly explanation has posited that the role of pupils, parents, teachers, government and the larger society is crucial in shaping the quality of education (Anamuah-Mensah, 2010). For instance, analysis of results has shown that there has been a cumulative decline in pupils' performance at the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) over the past five (5) years (Anamuah-Mensah, 2010). In view of these worrying trends, recently, there has been a surge of empirical research seeking to understand pupils' performance in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in Shama Sub-Metro of the Shama Ahanta East Metropolitan Assembly (SEAMA) identified poor teaching and learning environment, teacher absenteeism, poor attitude of pupils towards learning, absence of conducive learning conditions at home, low self-esteem and motivation, poor family structure, and the use of children by parents to support their family business during instruction session are the causes militating.
The academic performance of pupils in basic schools (Etsey, Amedahe, & Edjah, 2005). In Ghana, the poor academic performance of pupils is typically found in most public schools. As a consequence, personnel in Ghana Armed Forces Basic schools have advocated a meticulous review of the influences of regimented administrative structure on pupils' academic performance because it is generally argued among many scholars and practitioners in educational administration and management that the regimented administrative style of education has a strong influence on pupils' academic performance (Soeters, 2018). In general, though there are numerous works on pupils' academic performance in basic education in Ghana, there are only a few studies that exist on this subject matter. The situation thus necessitates an investigation into the effects of the regimented administrative structure of education on pupils' academic performance in Basic Education in Ghana to help make policy recommendations. The rest of the paper is categorized as follows; literature review, materials and methods, results and discussion, conclusions, and policy implications. explanation has argued that the economically marginalized regions of the country have continued to show poorer and poorer performance in the BECE. For example, in 2018, the national pass rate was 50%. This means that, if about 30 pupils from a school with a total candidate population of 50 get less than 50%, then that school could be said to have performed poorly. In practice, practitioners in education have categorized the causes of poor academic performance into the home and school environments (MacNeil & Maclin, 2005). Home conditions have also been postulated as factors that could hinder or promote the learner's academic performance as indicated above. Critical to the present consideration is the family structure. For example, studies by Abudu & Fuseini (2013) and Chukwuka, (2018) assert that the family structure is an important variable influencing the academic performance of pupils at home. As posited by scholars, pupils raised in single-parent homes are at risk for a number of less desirable outcomes. For instance, children in singleparent families are more likely to receive less parental monitoring and involvement at school. This practice affects the pupils learning experiences at school, which in turn, exposes them to inferior education leading to poor academic performances in school. Similarly, scholars such as Ushie, Emeka, Ononga, and Owolabi (2012), and Munje and Mncube (2018) argued that the higher the level of interest of the parents in the children's education, the better the level of children learning success.
For instance, parents' involvement in their children's academic activities including homework, classwork performance and Parent-Teacher Association meetings invariably motivate them to improve their learning experiences, which enhances their academic outcomes in schools. Additionally, Muodumogu (2014) in his related study claimed that the income level of the family plays a crucial role in children's academic performance in schools. According to him, parents who have regular income are able to provide their children's academic needs for them, and also they are able to control, supervise and chart a useful academic path for the pupils to follow in the academic ladder, which, in turn, has great influence in promoting the academic performance. According to Asikhia (2010), street hawking and other school-unfriendly activities have an impact on children's academic experiences. As noted by the scholar, many children who come from poor economic backgrounds are often used by parents to support the family business during an instructional session. This practice helps to bring additional income to the family, nevertheless, it has a negative influence on pupils' academic performance because, many of these children become truant to schooling, as a result, they find it very difficult to follow the lessons taught by teachers during their absence. Such development mostly disrupts their learning experiences in schools, leading to poor academic performance.
School Environmental Factors that Affect Pupils Academic Performance: School environment factors are the elements within the physical and immaterial structure of the school that may impact suitably or unsuitably on the quality of teaching and learning experiences. In his study titled: The Effects of Individual and School Factors on University Students' Academic Performance, Win and Miller ( 2010) indicated that the level of qualification of the teacher, both in terms of the level of training and the ability to impart knowledge, remains crucial for the academic performance of pupils. Explaining the point, the scholars noted that when a teacher is not trained or lacks the professional skill to teach, that teacher is most likely to produce underperforming pupils. According to Win and Miller (2010), this institutional development has a negative impact on children's academic processes, leading to poor academic achievement of the pupils in basic schools. Following from the preceding standpoint, a large body of literature indicates that the academic environment and the learning resources also contribute to the good academic performance of the pupils in schools.
According to Kober (2001) pupils can enjoy the quality of learning experiences and stimulation in the early years of life if the pupils' have access to good school environmental conditions and learning resources such as efficient teaching and learning materials, efficient classroom facilities and serene school environments. Supporting his view, Kober (2001) posited that school managers and administrators in the pre-schools ought to ensure that academic environment and other learning resources including library facilities, computer laboratory, and spacious classrooms are provided to enable the children to enjoy good and enabling academic environmental conditions to learn in schools. Other scholarly explanations also claimed that the quality of school administration is crucial to influence the academic performance of pupils. The quality of school administration can be achieved if there are effective rules, regulations and policies that govern the school system such as frequent staff meetings to discuss issues of the school, checking teachers' schemes of work, and lessons observations by the various head of departments of the school. In contrast, where there is poor school administration, teachers and pupils begin to relax in doing the academic work.

Military Culture and Basic Schools at Barracks:
Military culture is distinctively bedded on values. Which, in turn, may affect pupils' learning experiences, leading to poor pupils' performance in schools (Donkor, 2010;Asikhia, 2010;Muodumogu, 2014)? The military culture is characterized by rigidity, a strong and almost inflexible interpretation of what the attitude ought to be to duty as it is assigned or implied, (Gordon, 1985;Hofstede et al., 1990). The concept has become interesting from the human resource management and performance perspective in view of the perception that the concept was offering a far-from-mechanistic, imaginative and flexible approach to understanding organizations. Military culture could be looked at from several perspectives. In the quest to come to a fair understanding of military culture, an appeal is made to the Organizational Culture Profile (OCP) (O'Reilly, Chatman, & Caldwell, 1991), which has proven to be useful in characterizing true cultures across organizations or industries. The military is a social institution, which is characterized by a set of belief systems and values, nurtured over time (Snider, 1999;Soeters, 2018).
Sense of duty is one critical value dimension of the military, and this distinguishes it from many others, institutions. In the Ghana Armed Forces, as part of the training of Officer Cadets (Ghana Military Academy and Recruits (Army Recruit Training Centre), military culture is taught in all aspects. Soldiers are obligated to strive for values of right and good (Breslin, 2000). Sense of Duty is based on the preservation of life and society and is ranked high among the list of military ethos (Riccio et al., 2004;Riccio, 2010). It raises the stakes for honor, commitment to duty, unconditional service, and allegiance to the nation, and achievement of the greater good to the sacrifice of self, and unqualified authority to those in command (Breslin, 2000). The soldier does not do what is expected of him because he feels it is good but because he is commanded to do it. In the administration of Military Barracks Basic schools, these values such as truthfulness, hard work, collaboration, cohesiveness and people-orientation, where the execution of tasks is seen as teamwork rather than individual effort are unconsciously inculcated into the civilian pupils in their Basic Schools.

Methods and Procedures
A quantitative, cross-sectional research design was employed. Respondents were recruited based on their availability and readiness to participate. This study attempted to assess the effects of the regimented administrative structure of education on pupils' academic performance of Basic Schools in Military Barracks. As such, the study intended to make the sample as representative as possible through obtaining a target group consisting of all teachers in the selected schools who have at least one full year of working experience in the selected schools. The researchers utilized a non-probability convenience sampling procedure to select 98 out of 200 teachers in the selected Basic Schools of Military Barracks Education Unit in Ghana. This technique was useful because it helped to select participants from a target population based on the researcher's convenience and access to participants. Moreover, it aided in selecting participants who are readily available to the researchers at the time of data collection. Data collection was done through the use of a questionnaire. The second and fourth statement for assessment shows median t-value.
Which express not so close or far value from the test value the questionnaire consisted of two sections. The first section focused on the demographic and biographical information, and the second section used the 7 value dimensions of O'Reilly, Chatman and Caldman (991) as variables of military organizational culture to assess their impact on the academic performance of the pupils. The choice of the questionnaire was to safeguard the identity of respondents and also, to make them more willing to avail themselves for the exercise. Altogether, a total of 98 questionnaires were distributed to the respondents (teachers) to generate data for the study. Ninety-five (95) questionnaires were retrieved from the 98 questionnaires, representing 93.1 percent. In addition, all necessary steps in line with ethical considerations were taken to ensure the anonymity and confidentiality of the respondents. Data analysis was carried out using SPSS version 22. To analyze the data from the responses in the questionnaires, descriptive statistics and ANOVA analysis were done. Finally, the findings of the study were discussed in the context of existing literature and the theory.

Findings and Discussion
Socio-Demographic Data of Respondents: This part focuses on the description of the socio-demographic data of respondents. These include age, gender, academic education, length of stay in school, and taught outside this school. A detailed summary of the results is indicated in Table 1.  Table 1, it was found that the majority of respondents were within the age bracket of 41-50 years constitutes 41%, while 16% were within 20-30 years. A cursory look at the percentages reveals that there is a fair distribution of the age groups within the respondents. In terms of academic qualification, 1% had a Ph.D., while the 77% of respondents had a Bachelor's degree. Again, 18% of respondents had their Master's degree. With regards to the duration of teaching experience in the Military Barracks schools, 62% said they had been there for more than 5 years. In addition, 71% of respondents indicated that they had teaching experience outside the Military Barracks School system. This leaves 29%, who were posted directly to Military Barracks Education Unit without prior teaching experience.

Military Organizational Culture Value Dimensions and Impact on the Academic Environment:
This section analyses how the military organizational value dimensions impact the work output of teachers in the Military Barracks schools. Table 2 presents a summary of the results of the study. From Table 2, the respondents were asked which Military Value Dimensions affect teaching outputs. The results showed that "Sense of Duty" had (t=14.2, M=1.5, p=.000) which ranked first, this was followed by, "Aggressiveness" had (t=16.1, M=1.7, p=.000), "Innovation" had (t=16.1, M=1.7, p=.000). "Respect for People" had (t=16.4, M=1.8, p=.000), "Result Orientation" had (t=16.8, M=2.4, p=.000), "Stability" had (t=17.7, M=2, p=.000). Also, "Attention to detail" had (1=20.8, M=1.9, p=.000), and "Team Orientation" had (t=23.2, M=1.7, p=.000). The results show that is Team Orientation is the military dimension that has the most impact on the teaching output. That notwithstanding, it was noted that all the military value dimensions have a significant impact on the teaching outputs of the respondent since the t-values of the corresponding values show no huge differences. From the findings, it was revealed that the military value dimensions have had an impact on their output as teachers of the schools. This finding confirms that earlier of Breslin, (2000) and Riccio et al. (2004) that sense of duty is based on the preservation of life and society and is ranked as significant among the list of military ethos.

Trend of the Impact of the Value Dimensions:
The value dimensions could, for instance, impact negatively teachers' output when we use pupil performance at the BECE as a standard appraisal of teacher output. The converse could also hold true for the same phenomenon. A determination as to whether or not teachers observe a drop or rise in the impact of the value dimensions on their output is critical to the determination of whether or not the values play a consequential role in pupil performance at the BECE. If the trend is ascending, then there is a strong probability that the value dimensions are either inimical to academic performance or are simply of no positive impact on the academic performance of pupils. This is because the rise in the impact of the values would be coterminous with the dipping academic fortunes of pupils as seen in the BECE results. A descending trend could however point to either a possible lapse in the enforcement regime which ought to receive administrative attention or a mere fact that, imposing military value dimensions on the school environment is retrogressive. Table 3 presents a summary of the results of the study. As indicated in Table 3, 41% of respondents feel that the military value dimensions have been in the ascending trend, while 45% hold that the impact has been diminishing, and 14% of respondents were not sure of the exact trend. Based on the finding, it can conclude that the majority of respondents believe the military value dimensions have to experience a descending trend, thus, the impact of these dimensions on the teaching and learning experiences have rather been waning leading to poor performance of pupils in the schools.

Nature of the Relationship between Military Administrative Staff and Civilian Teaching Staff:
The nature of the relationship between Military Administrative Staff and Civilian Teaching Staff was also examined. Table 4 provides the summary results. As Table 4 depicted, 66% of teachers feel that their relationship with the Military Barracks Education office has been of a coercive nature, whilst 32% indicated that the military-civil relationship in Military Barracks Education Unit was very cooperative and social. From the findings, it can be interpreted that the military-civil relationship in Military Barracks Education Unit is coercive, which implies that there is generally unhealthy relationship exists among them. In practice, this phenomenon tends to influence the performance of teachers in the Military Barracks Education Unit.

Usefulness of the Regimented Administrative Structure:
This section assesses the impact of the regimented administrative structure on the overall efficiency of the Military Barracks Educational system. The EO is the Officer-In-Charge (OIC) of the Unit and has wide administrative and punitive powers. Their actions, thus stipulated within the administrative framework has far-reaching consequences on the general well-being of the teachers, and with a resultant effect on their output, which itself is determined by the performance of pupils in the BECE. Being key actors within the administrative system, the respondents have an input in the eventual determination of whether or not the organization of the Military Barracks Educational system as it stands is useful for their pedagogical output. The table below presents the findings on the regimented administrative structure.  Table 5 presents the results of the respondent's perception of the usefulness of the regimented administrative structure of the Military Barracks Education Unit. Averagely, the majority of respondents, (48%) saw the regimented administrative structure to be positive. Alternatively, 36% saw the structure to be Journal of Social and Development Sciences (ISSN 2221-1152

Impact of the Value of Sense of Duty on School Factors for Academic Performance:
This section draws a critical link between sense of duty on the part of respondents and the impact it has on identifiable school factors for academic performance: lateness, absenteeism, lesson notes preparation and ensuring discipline of pupils. The further focus on the sense of duty is based on the assertion in our earlier discussions on the military value dimensions that, the former almost entirely encapsulates all other value dimensions. Table 6 presents the results of the sense of duty -school factors for academic performance permutation. Source: Field data, 2020 In Table 6, it was observed that the majority of respondents identified a sense of duty as the military value that impacted their work output the most. In this section, Tables 4 and 5 reveal concurrent trends wherein the survey, the majority of respondents hold that sense of duty has impacted either 'strongly' or 'very strongly' the school factors for academic performance. Thus, lateness, absenteeism, lesson notes preparation and ensuring a disciplined pupil attitude all on the part of teachers have been positively impacted by a sense of duty. For a better appreciation, we see that the figures in terms of p-value read 0.65, 0.87, 0.004 and 0.072 for lateness, absenteeism, lesson notes preparation and ensuring pupil discipline respectively. These values depict higher levels of agreement on the extent to which sense of duty impacts the school factors of academic performance. Here again, we find that the views of Augustine (1983) on the overarching influence of sense of duty on the generality of staff are echoed.

Assessing the Attributes of the Military Barracks Education Officer:
In the present section, the attributes of the EO, as an embodiment of the entire administrative architecture of the Unit are assessed. This has become even so important given the individual differences that characterize the choice of administrative style by each EO. Respondents were therefore invited to proffer their guided opinions on the person and office of the EO basing their opinion on a set of statements to which they were to indicate their agreement or otherwise.  Table 7 displays the results when respondents were asked their opinions on the Garrison Educational officer and administrative practices. The results show that most of the respondents held in affirmative that "The Garrison Education Officer is authoritarian" as indicated by the t=13.2 as the closest value to the test value=0. Also, the table depicts the closeness of "T" on the statements "Garrison Education Officers are mostly similar in their administrative styles" indicating the affirmation of the respondents to the statement under assessment. The second and fourth statement for assessment shows median t-value which express not so close or far value from the test value. This indicates an indifferent opinion on the statements. Finally, the respondents indicated strong disagreement with the statement that "The administrative structure, which puts the military in charge of the administration of the Schools is useful" as the t=31.3 denotes a huge deviation from the 0. The same is shown for the third statement.
Measures Aimed at Propping up Academic Performance: This section examines the various measures that could be put in place to prop up the academic performance of pupils, especially in the BECE. Special emphasis was on the administrative structure and its attendant military organizational culture. The findings are presented in Table 8 below.  Table 8 generally indicates that respondents have been very much influenced by their welfare considerations and what, in their view relates to creating an optimal environment for academic work to thrive. 6% and 4% do 'disagree' and 'strongly disagree' as presented in Table A. Thus, 65% 'strongly agree' that the EO should be cooperative and social in its administrative dealings. Additionally, 16% 'agree' to the statement. Reflective of the mood in the earlier statement, only 2% of respondents 'strongly agree' that the EO should be coercive. Still in the coercive proposal, as many as 88% 'strongly disagree'. The third statement suggested that the EO ought to provide adequate teaching and learning materials for lessons, to which 65% 'strongly agree'. However, 30% were indifferent, while 1% 'strongly disagree'. The fourth statement was about the welfare of teachers, and 86% of teachers 'strongly agree' that the EO ought to seek the welfare of staff. In this regard, 4% were 'indifferent' while the same proportion 'strongly disagree'. In the fifth statement, 78% of respondents 'strongly agree' that the administrative structure of the Military Barracks Education system should be reviewed to accommodate civilians as EOs. While 3% were indifferent and the same proportion 'strongly disagree'.

Conclusion and Recommendations
The study has made a modest attempt at demonstrating that the regimented administrative structure of Military Barracks Education Units is borne out of the characteristic military organizational culture, which itself, is at the core of the system that either creates a favorable or an unfavorable academic environment. A lot has changed in terms of the social dynamics of the average Ghanaian now and times past when the military was so dreaded and could cause things to occur by appeal to force and not reason-based diplomacy or persuasion. Today, the average Ghanaian is imbued with an awareness of democratic and civil rights and would not easily surrender these assets. This is a fertile ground for conflict or at best some form of 'cold war. Indeed, emerging military doctrine vogue in most armed forces across the world is no more characterized by the 'attritionist approach', which is characterized by brute force and unquestioned obedience to command.
The tendency lately is in favor of 'mission command' by which commanders are obligated to tell subordinates "what to do and why", not how. This is to guarantee freedom of action and the use of good initiative. There is ample evidence to show that the purely coercive approach to administering even the military does not work anymore. It is not surprising that such a module does not seem to be working for the military administration of civilian institutions. The Ghana Armed Forces are not in the position to train teachers to fill teaching vacancies in the Armed Forces schools.
The teachers in Military Barracks Schools should therefore be seen as worthy partners in the administration of the schools. Their views would have to be taken into consideration by various EOs in major administrative decisions. That is the way to create an inclusive system, where they do not feel alienated. The responses to the questionnaires do give rise to a suspicion that the coercive style has led to the muffling of otherwise good suggestions from these teachers over a considerable period. Their apathy and indifference to their work environment were mistakenly viewed by the military administrative body to mean conformism. As a compromise between the civilian wish for a cooperative administrative culture and the military preference for a coercive relationship, a delicate balance could be struck, where the administrators sustain the strict disciplinarian approach without creating animosity with the teaching staff. This could be enhanced by regular durbars with management, and visits to the schools. When teachers feel their needs are being attended to by management, and that they are also given some attention regarding their welfare needs and personal development, they will naturally be ready to give off their best. Such an environment ought to be further matched with proper monitoring and supervision. This potentially creates the paradigm shift required for breaking off from the currently observed academic under-performance of pupils at the BECE.