| dc.description.abstract | In the last two decades there have been numerous initiatives aimed at ensuring that all
children of school going age have access to education. Effective teaching techniques are
highly dependent on the psychological well being of the teacher. Although a lot of efforts
have been made in this aspect, there have been many doubts on teachers’ competence and
performance in meeting the challenges and needs in new government initiatives. The
introduction of Free Primary Education (FPE) in 2003 is one such initiative that caught
Kenya’s education system completely off guard and failed to enact adequate preparations
for the policy. The program brought a sharp focus on the teacher effectiveness owing to
the induction of this broad concept in the educational process. This study examined the
influence of FPE on teachers’ effectiveness in Kuria East Constituency. The study
establishes the effects of FPE on teacher’s effectiveness and pupil enrolment trends
before and after FPE. The study also looked at the teacher – pupil ratio within this period
and its impact on teachers’ effectiveness.
Stratified random sampling was used in the identification of 25 primary schools from
which the head teachers and 88 teachers that were selected through random sampling
participated in the study. The study employed the use of a questionnaire, an interview
schedule and document analysis as the main research instruments. Quantitative data
generated from these instruments was quantitatively with the aid of SPSS version 17
while content analysis used for the qualitative. The analyzed data was then summarized
into frequencies and percentages and presented in tables, bar charts and figures.
Findings of the study indicate that the pupil enrolment rate in Kuria East Constituency
increased by 41.8% between 2002 and 2008. Introduction of FPE resulted in
overcrowding in classes leading to a high pupil - teacher ratio which average 53:1. In
some of the schools the pupil-teacher ratio was as high as 77:1. This negatively affected
teachers’ effectiveness as the teachers were forced to result to the use of a single teaching
method in order to meet the increased class sizes. From this study, the rushed
introduction of FPE demoralized teachers as they were faced with an increased workload
and yet there were no incentives offered for the increased workload.
In conclusion, this study finds that there was need for teacher involvement and
participation in making decisions pertaining to the introduction of FPE. A mode of
remuneration or offering incentives to the teachers for the increased workload should
have been formulated in order to motivate the teachers. A characteristic of FPE was
increased pupil enrolment and as such there was need for the government to increase the
number of teachers and classrooms in order to meet the increase, thereby ensuring that
teachers’ effectiveness was not hampered. | en_US |
