| dc.description.abstract | Since the set up of the first school in Rabai in 1846, school infrastructure development was done by the church and later by the community after development of independent schools. The development of education in Kenya and the increased population led to increased enrolment which made the church and the community to pay more to maintain the infrastructure. After independence in Kenya in 1963 most of the schools were left under the community. The Kenya government on several occasions introduced free education with the school infrastructure being left on the hands of the community. The introduction of free primary education in 2003 led to increased enrolment from 5.9 to 7.2 million pupils by 2005. This led to overstretched school infrastructure and the Kenya government through Kenya School Sector Support programme allocated funds for school infrastructure improvement. The headteachers, the School Management Committee, and the School Infrastructure Committee were to implement this programme. Despite the government input in School infrastructure development, infrastructure in some schools still remains wanting.
Against this background, the study assessed the influence of headteachers competence in financial management on infrastructure development in public primary schools. The literature review relevant to this study laid the background for the study. Using a cross-sectional survey design and systematic random sampling, the researcher sampled 30 schools in Kieni East District. From each school a head teacher and four regular teachers were interviewed using a structured questionnaire during the early part of June 2012. A piloting study was carried out prior to data collection. Analysis of the data found the questionnaire to be valid and of high reliability (Cronbach's alpha =0.7). Data was analyzed using Microsoft Excel as well as SPSS version 19 for windows. Twelve schools accounting to 40% of all the schools in the study kept the school infrastructure account, school operation account and school development account. 8 schools kept the school infrastructure account alone.7 schools kept the school operation account while the school development account was the least popular with only 3 schools having one.
The study found that all the schools in the study drew budgets. 43% drew budgets on availability of funds while an equal number drew budgets annually regardless of the availability of funds. 10% and 3.3% of the schools came up with budgets termly and monthly respectively. In the procurement process, the school management committee was the most commonly involved group in 80% of the schools in the study; this was followed by the staff at 60% and the school infrastructure committee. 90% of the head teachers confirmed that their schools filed records of transactions. The receipt book was the most popular record kept as it was found in 28 schools. The cash book and the payment vouchers were present in 26 schools each while the ledger was the least popular with only 24 schools keeping it. Results indicated that auditing was done in 83.3% of the school. Auditing was done once a year in most schools and twice a year in 7 schools. A financial report was produced and shared with the school infrastructure committee upon auditing.
The researcher concluded that Most of the infrastructure went into building classrooms. He recommended that:
I. The Ministry of Education should ensure that financial management training of regular teachers is embedded in the teacher training curriculum in Teacher Training colleges and universities, so that not only can they assist in record keeping but they can also ensure transparency and accountability in use of funds. The Ministry should also come up with an online system that makes it easy for schools to keep records. This would ensure transparency. Since the Ministry of education is allocating a lot of funds in primary schools, it should facilitate employment of secretaries and bursars in order to ease head teachers work and avoid mismanagement of infrastructure funds an
II. The Teachers Service Commission in its management of teachers should train head teachers in management of infrastructure by offering programmers aimed specifically at school infrastructure.
III. Teachers and head teachers in the field require training in auditing. Since KESI offers such programmes the ministry of education should ensure that the management of KESI facilitates the acquisition of these skills
IV. Head teachers should involve teachers in the management of school infrastructure in order to ease their (head teachers) work. They should also expose financial records to teachers for transparency and accountability
V. Teachers should engage themselves in education programmes offering school management in order to acquire school management skills that would help them manage school infrastructure. | en_US |
