| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of the study was to investigate the influence of headteachers' management practices on the students' performance in KCSE in Rachuonyo South District, Homa-Bay County. The objectives of the study were: to establish the extent to which human resource management in schools by headteachers influenced students' performance in KCSE , to determine the extent to which financial management of headteachers influenced students' performance in KCSE, and to establish the influence of headteachers' teaching and learning resource management and how it influenced students' performance in KCSE.
The study was built on a hypothesis that poor management practices of head teachers negatively influenced academic performance of students in national examinations. A descriptive survey research design was used. To obtain a study sample, random sampling techniques were used. Out of 50 secondary schools in the district, 15 public secondary schools were selected. Two of the schools were girls' public secondary schools, two were boys' public secondary schools, and eleven were mixed public secondary schools based on the proportion of the type of the schools in the district. As a limitation of the study, participating schools had to have presented KCSE candidates in the years 2010 and earlier. 15 headteachers, 15 teachers and 60 class prefects participated in the study.
To assess the influence of management practices, the study involved generation of four research questions. The four areas included human resource management, financial management, and learning and teaching resource management, strategies used by headteachers to improve performance in KCSE. Findings of the study have thus been divided according to the research questions. The Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) was used for data analysis based on 90 returned questionnaires. The procedure involved running frequencies and cross tabulations of various variables. Because the study involved three different categories of respondents namely, headteachers, teachers and Class prefects, outcome of each stratum was compared and correlation of the corresponding relationships calculated.
The study revealed close association of responses between students, teachers and headteachers. That is, the three groups of individuals agreed that poor management practices of headteachers negatively influenced performance of students in KCSE in the district. Specifically, the study found that poor human resource management by the headteachers significantly influenced performance of students in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education negatively. Also, adopting ineffective finance management methodologies does not only lead to inability of a school to acquire various learning facilities, but also promote inadequacy of both teaching and support staff in the school. These two results thwart efforts of both students and teachers to produce quality grades in national examinations.
The report also proposed various ways of improving management practices for headteachers in human resource management, financial management and teaching and learning resource management in an effort to improve academic performance of students in KCSE in the district. BoGs and PTAs should establish elaborate system for motivating hardworking teachers, students and support staff in the schools. TSC and the Ministry of Education should engage teachers in. professional courses, seminars and in-service courses offered by KEMI to develop their skills in teaching and management. Suggested areas for further research are roles of teachers, students and parents in improving secondary school examination outcomes and specific suitable solutions to particular indiscipline cases in secondary schools in Rachuonyo South District, Homa Bay County, Kenya. | en_US |
