| dc.description.abstract | Education has been defined as the process through which knowledge; skills, attitudes and values
are imparted for the purpose of integrating the individual in a given society, or changing the
values and norms of a society. According to the government of Kenya, education begins at early
childhood development which is the nursery, baby class among others. The leadership of the
school is vested on the school principal. Leadership is influencing other people in order to
achieve a given goal. The study sought to find out how the leadership style of the school
principal affect the performance of the student in their Kenya Certificate Primary Education. The
methodology of the study was use of both primary and secondary data, the primary data was
meant to enable the researcher identify the leadership style of the school principal and the
demographics of the school which included the ownership of the school, number of streams,
gender of the principal among others. The secondary data was the performance of the sampled
primary school in their Kenya Certificate of Primary Education. The sampled schools were in
Nairobi County and they were both private and public schools. The findings of the study show
that a large number of primary schools in Nairobi County use the bureaucratic leadership styles,
this mean that decisions are made as per the set rules and regulations. This is followed by
participative, then authoritative and finally laissez –faire style. There is no clear association
between the leadership style and the performance of the school. However, there is a clear
connection between the number of student within a school and the performance of the student. It
is critical to note that the number of students in the school is highest where the leadership style is
bureaucratic. This could be associated with the fact that most parents believe that the principal
who makes decision “by the book” is much effective. In conclusion, the type of leadership that is
embraced in primary schools is transformational; this is where the school principal inspires the
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staff to adopt the schools vision as their own. The leading leadership in the primary schools is
bureaucratic. The level of delegation in school is encouraging as most of the schools have
committees that include; sports committees, academic committee’s disciplinary committee
among. This is encouraging as it shows that the staffs are involved in the management of the
school. The study recommends that the number of students within a school should be monitored
to avoid high number of students in class, this is because, the teachers workload will be affected
and the performance of the student will also be affected in a negative way. By having fewer
students the teachers have an opportunity to give one on one attention to the student, identify
their weakness, their strength and help them improve before they undertake their final exam. The
study further recommends that there are other factors that need to be considered when improving
the performance of the school, they include, resource such as books, enough teachers among
others. The study further recommends continuous training for the school principals to enable
them deal with the changes within the school. | en |
