Organisational Learning and Adaptive Capacity of Secondary School Systems in the North Central Zone: A Complex Adaptive Systems Perspective

This study examines organisational learning and the adaptive capacity of secondary school systems in the North Central geopolitical zone of Nigeria through the theoretical lens of Complex Adaptive Systems theory. Educational systems are increasingly conceptualised as complex adaptive systems characterised by nonlinearity, emergence, feedback loops, and adaptive behaviour, yet empirical applications of this perspective in Nigerian educational administration research remain rare. The North Central zone, with its ethnic diversity, resource variability, and periodic social unrest, offers a complex and adaptive institutional environment well-suited to this framework. The study employs a qualitative dominant mixed methods design. The qualitative phase involves multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork over eight months in 12 secondary schools across Benue, Kogi, and Niger States, complemented by 36 in-depth interviews with school administrators and education officials. The quantitative phase deploys a validated organisational learning survey to 280 teachers. Data are analysed using Qualitative Comparative Analysis, fuzzy-set analysis, and thematic coding. Findings identify adaptive leadership, distributed knowledge creation, and external environment sensing as the key organisational learning enablers, and demonstrate that schools exhibiting high adaptive capacity navigate resource shocks and policy changes with greater continuity and recovery speed. The study makes a theoretical contribution by generating the first Complex Adaptive Systems model of secondary school administration in Northern Nigeria. Recommendations address adaptive capacity building in state secondary school management frameworks. Keywords: organisational learning, adaptive capacity, complex adaptive systems, secondary schools, North Central Nigeria.