| dc.description.abstract | In the recent past years, there have been concerns over the issues of disagreement between secondary school head teachers and Board of Governors on management issues such as qualifications of BOG, staff recruitment, decision making, and the general performances of schools. Sometimes the disagreements have been so acute such that school operations have been brought to a complete halt to the detriment of the students and the whole school community.
This study sought to establish the influence of the board of governors in secondary schools' management in Lari district-Kenya. The-choice of the location was influenced by the fact that over the last 5 years there have been cases of BoG and the school administration conflicting or differing on various decisions making issues temporally halted operations in six (6) institutions.
The study population involved a total of twenty two (22) secondary schools in the district. Out of the 22 schools, simple random sampling was used to select ten (10) schools for the investigation, representing 45.5% of the total population. Most scholars have recommended that a sample of 30% is representative for statistical analysis (Kothari, 1999) Data was collected using questionnaire for teachers, head teachers of the ten schools and BOG members in these schools. Data collected was analyzed thematically-by use of frequencies, percentages and tables.
The study findings showed that the BOG disciplined teachers and students and were involved in school development. Further the respondents indicated that BOGs 'influence on KCSE performance was good while a similar percentage stated that BOG contribution towards teachers' motivation was fair. It was evident that participation of BOG in decision making in schools did not achieve its mandate. The study findings indicated that the BOG failed to include teachers and non teaching staff in implementation and decision making thus the arising conflicts.
The study recommended that school stakeholders should select neutral sponsor during the nomination of BOG. The sponsor should also have minimum control on the school management to avoid the instructive activities of the schools. Secondly, the study recommends that BOG should further tighten the discipline of student as provided for in education Act cap 211 legal notice No 4011972 part 4 to 10. Thus the BOG of school should take administrative rule to disciplining all non adherence students in their schools.
Lastly the BOG should play a vital role in decision making of the school management. On the other hand they should take every stakeholders decision on board to avoid conflicting interests in the running of the school. In general the study showed that BOGs' qualification, their decisions and involvement on staff recruitment, has great influence in school management. This further influence the schools' performance in national examinations. | en_US |
