CONFLICT MANAGEMENT IN EDUCATIONAL SECTOR

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Conflict management in a education sector, the management of conflict in education sector using peaceful, non-violent methods has been around for a long time. In nearly all African societies there is a preference for the peaceful settlement of dispute along the line prescribed frowned at. In a few instance where it may be tolerated, the community rather than the individual has to be sanctioning authority, the sanctioning following due process. In all civilized parts of the world, there is growing resort to the peaceful settlement of dispute in an organization. The image of violence presented by the media is not as such a true reflection of the dominant method of settling conflict in an organizations. There is an enormous amount of dispute taking place at various levels and in many organizations communities, groups and international levels.

A wider range of non-violent method of managing conflict avails to the conflict transformation world. These methods are available at the individual, family, group, community and international levels.

Conflict management is the process of reducing the negative and destructive capacity of conflict through a number of measures and by working with through the parties involved in that conflict. This term is some times used synonymously with “conflict regulation”. It covers the entire area of handling conflict pristinely at different stages, including those efforts made to prevent conflict by being practice. It encompasses conflict limitation, containment and litigation. In the words of (John Barton), this may include “conflict prevention” (Barton 1990) a term he used to connote containment of conflict through steps introduced to promote conditions in which collaborative and valued relationships control the behavior of conflict parties. The term “conflict management” is perhaps an administration and admission of the reality that conflict is in evitable but that not all conflicts can always be resolved. Therefore what practitioners can do is to manage and regulate them.

Conflict resolution is seen by Miller (2003:8) as a variety of approaches aimed at terminating conflict from management or transformation through the constructive solving of problems, distinct from management of conflict. Miall etal (2005;21)indicated that by resolution, it is expected that the deep rooted sources of conflict are addressed and resolved and behavior is no longer violent, nor are attitudes hostile any longer while the structure of the conflict has been changed. Mitchel and bank (1996) use conflict resolution to refer to:

An outcome in which the issue in an existing conflict are satisfactorily dealt with through a solution that is mutually acceptable to the parties, self-sustaining in the run and productive of a new, positive relationship between parties that were previously hostile adversaries and
Any process or procedure by which such an outcome is achieved.
Conflict transformation has been introduced by John Paul leaderach of the Eastern Mennonite school of peace building. It is assumed that this goes beyond conflict resolution to build longer standing relationships and the conditions that created the conflict, the process of change in perceptions and attitudes of parties, their relationships and perceptions.

Miall etal (2001). Conflict transformation entails the coming into being of new situations involving conflict issues, perceptions relationships and communication pattern (Jeong, 2000).

According to John ledorah (1995) sees conflict transformation as change. It can be descriptively in the change created by social conflict, and prescriptive in the deliberate intervention by third parties to create change. Conflict transformation takes place at different levels and has a number of dimensions. At the personal level, it involves emotional, perceptual and spiritual aspects of change desired for the individual. It also affects relationship touching on communication between parties that needs to change to positively affect poorly functioning communication. Change also needs to affect structures that generate conflict through deprivation, exclusion and other forms of injustice. It also seeks to understand cultural patterns and values.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM:
The challenge for conflict management theory is to study real problems in the world rather them just deal with cases. In the issues in practice section a number of topics that confront theoretical and practitioners on all levels of activity are introduced and analyzed in view of the theoretical approaches. Most of these issues are answers to problems that span across the entire field of conflict management, or cross cutting agendas that have to be dealt with in order for the theoretical approaches to truly tackle the reality of conflicts. It involves evaluating the effectiveness of conflict management as well as its readiness to deal with new problems and new issues, such as terrorism.

Organizational conflict can be many and varied the most common causes are the following:

Scarcity of resources (finance, equipment, facilities)etc.
Different attitude, values or perceptions.
Disagreements about needs, goals, priorities and interest
Poor communication.
Poor or inadequate organizational structure.
Lack of team work.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Does management decision, policy and organizational chart cause conflict among workers in an organization?
Does poor motivation and management of personal lead to conflict in an organization?
Does the blatant exhibition of personal differences by management in the bid to distribution themselves from organization lead to conflict?
Does management of conflict lead to conflict transformation?
How does conflict resolution lead to increase in productivity?
Is there any relationship between conflict management and conflict transformation?
HYPOTHESIS:
In order to guide the major activities of this project under study and based on research question, highlighted above, the researcher from the research questions decided to formulate the following research hypothesis.

Ho: that there is a relationship between inappropriate selection of managers with good leadership qualities and conflict in an organization.

H1: there is no relationship between inappropriate selection of managers with good leadership qualities and conflict in an organization.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:
The objective of the study are:

To identify the nature and characteristics of organizational conflict.
To examine the current strategies adopted in managing organizational conflict.
To determine the effect of organizational conflict.
To reveal the short falls and prospects of the current strategies adopted.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY:

A conflict arises when individuals have varied interest opinions and through processes and are just not willing to compromises with each other. It is always wise to adjust to some extent and try to find a solution to the problem rather than cribbing and fighting. Conflicts and disagreements only lead to negativity and things never reach a conclusion. It only adds on to the tensions and spoils your reputation. Every individual should try his level best to avoid conflict at the first place rather than resolving it later. Precautions must be taken at the right time to avoid a conflict.

This research aims at finding the benefits of conflict management, to the organization society, government and academics:

Conflict management prevents fall out between organizations society government stress free. Blame game never helps anyone, instead it makes life miserable. No idea can ever be implemented it the individuals fight among themselves.
Through conflict management skills an individual explores all the possible reasons to worry which might. Later lead to a big problems and tries to resolve it as soon as possible.
Stress disappears, people feel motivated, happy and the world definitely become a much better place to stay as a result of conflict management.
Conflict management avoids conflict a great extent and thus also reduce the stress and tension of the employees. No one likes to carry his tensions back home and if you fight with your colleagues and other people, you are bound to feel uncomfortable and restless even at home.
SCOPE OF THE STUDY:
This study is restricted to finding the real causes of conflict in an organization (eduation sector) case study of SIAT limited Rivers state. Its effect on productivity and profitability enhancement. Beside recommending possible ways of managing conflict in an organization, hence actions management can takes to deal directly with conflict in the organization without personnel to mention but a few.

This study does not cover conflict resolution or management outside the corporation world like in a political arena social clubs or gathering communities states or nation as a whole which are other area interact arm or SIAT limited (River State) line would definitely constitute sub-optimality as they are colored by unnecessary bias and prejudice which is not to the benefit of the organization.

LIMITATION OF THE STUDY:
The researchers in the process of carrying out the research encountered the following constraints.

Lack of finance and time and combing it with school work.
Non disclosure of required information by the respondents.
Error in interpreting and recording answers.
Sampling procedure.
Non response error
Lack of research equipments like computer contributed to slowing down the pace. He pace of the research.
Scanty information base.
Inadequate statistics
Lack of mobility/mobilization of interviewers, inadequate personnel to be interviewed.