Influence of Principals’ Management of Institutional Facilities on Implementation of 100 Percent Transition Policy in Public Secondary Schools in Hamisi Sub County, Kenya

Abstract

The drive for secondary school education to adapt to the highly dynamic and competitive environment, has led to refocusing of principals’ management of institutional facilities to improve performance in the schools. The number of students in public secondary schools has nearly tripled yet the physical and human facilities have stagnated. The sudden increase of form one enrollment in public secondary schools in Kenya demands that there should be a way of checking whether the institutional facilities are well and appropriately implemented and whether they address the demands of the students. Considering this, the study is therefore intended to explore the influence of principals’ management of institutional facilities on the implementation of 100 percent transition policy in public secondary schools in Hamisi Sub County, Kenya and to answer the main research question: What influence does the principals’ management of institutional facilities has on the implementation of 100 percent policy. The study focused on the following variables: Availability of teaching and learning space, availability of teaching and learning resources, culture influence and influence of resource allocation on implementation of the policy. The study is anchored on systems theory. This study adopted the descriptive research design. The target population consisted of all the 48 public secondary schools, 48 principals, 48 BOM chairpersons, 48 school committee representing parents, 96 teachers (heads of departments) and 1,920 form three students giving a target population of 2,161 from the public secondary schools in Hamisi Sub County. The study used stratified random sampling technique to select and distribute the 10 schools. Ten percent (10 %) of the students and 20% of the teachers were selected using simple random technique ten principals and 10 BOM chairpersons of the 10 schools and SCDE were purposely selected for interview. Questionnaires were used to collect data from school principals, BOM chairpersons, teachers (HODs), parents’ representatives and students. Interview schedules were used to collect in-depth information from the Sub-County Director of Education and from the principals. Quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics with the aid of (SPSS). The analyzed data was presented in Tables. The study found that the playing field, library, and classrooms conformed to the statutory regulations in terms of space and dimensions to a great extent. Moreover, the study established that the laboratory equipment was inadequate for carrying out successful practical sessions. The research established that it is the culture of the school to reward the staff and students reinforcing the behavior exhibited by them, and the school had traditions and routines build from shared values and norms that reinforce social standards. The research also found that improvement on learning environment that is provision of textbooks, classrooms, library, and playground, all created safe environments. The research also found that the government disbursement affects procurement of goods, budget implementation, and project inception and closure. The study concluded that schools with inadequate teaching and learning space faced serious challenges in running of the school programmes which had an influence on implementation of the 100 percent transition policy. The study recommends that the government should allocate more funds for addition infrastructure required in teaching and learning in public secondary school. This will ensure that all public schools have adequate teaching and learning resources, supportive culture of rewarding the staff and students and have prioritized allocation of resources for the implementation of 100% transition policy.