Influence Of Principals’ Leadership Strategies On Students’ Performance At Kenya Certificate Of Secondary Education In Public Day Secondary Schools, Mutitu Sub-County – Kitui, Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate influence of principals’ leadership strategies on students’ performance at Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) in public day secondary schools, Mutitu Sub-County, Kitui County, Kenya. The study was guided by the following objectives; to determine the effect of the principals’ supervision of school resources, the extent of principals’ supervision on teachers, the influence of principals’ supervision of curriculum implementation and the extent to which teacher motivation influence students’ performance at KCSE in public day secondary schools, Mutitu Sub-County. The study was based on Henri Fayol’s administrative theory of 1925 which states that good administrative management is based on four activities; the personnel, resource management, financial management and physical facilities management. The study used descriptive survey design because it administered questionnaires to collect data. The target population was 6 public day secondary schools in Mutitu Sub-County consisting of 6 principals, 66 teachers and 300 form four students. Purposive sampling was used to get 6 schools of the 6 public secondary schools, 6 principals and 66 teachers that is 11 teachers for the eleven subjects from each school. The 300 form 4 students were selected using stratified random sampling out of which 90 students were picked to participate. Statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) IBM version 20 was used to analyze the data both qualitatively and quantitatively. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze data then presented through tabular representation of frequency tables and pie charts. Qualitative data analysis was done by describing the distribution in tabular and narration of single variables. The findings showed that the principals supervised financial resources well although they had a laxity on supervision of educational resources, teachers indicated conversance of the code of conduct but were not keenly supervised on punctuality and attendance to their duties. The study indicated majority of the principals never motivated their teachers and this could be the major reason for poor performance at KCSE in public day secondary schools. The study made recommendations that the district education officials and the county education officials to ensure all public day secondary schools have adequate necessary learning resources. Again the Quality and Assurance Standards Officers to ensure that principals keenly supervise instruction in their schools. Also principals in public day secondary schools were recommended through the Ministry of Education for training on importance of teacher motivation in relation with students’ performance as the study indicated it was not done in majority of the schools and Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to promote teachers based on academic qualification like M.Ed. and Ph.D. because they have more knowledge on leadership in both secondary and primary schools.