Factors Influencing The Implementation Of Life Skill Education Curriculum In Secondary Schools In Kenya: A Case Of Murang'a County

Abstract

Any particular education system ought to be revised regularly to bring out general improvements in the education system which can in this case be a major driving force to curriculum reforms in schools. This study sought to investigate the factors influencing the implementation of life skill education curriculum in secondary schools with Murang'a County as the case study. Government’s effort to use strategies such as LSE curriculum as a control measure to curb rise of psycho-social challenges facing children and teenagers in schools today is a well calculated move; but unless proper measures are put in place to evaluate the factors influencing the implementation process, the intended objectives of the LSE curriculum may not be realized. Despite the efforts made by the government in the recent past to equip young people with the life skills through the LSE Curriculum, youths in schools continue to succumb to the psycho-social challenges such as drug and substance abuse, early marriages, unfocused relationships resulting to high rate of HIV infections, teenage pregnancies, increased school dropout, increase in indiscipline cases in schools, and poor academic performances. The purpose of this study was to assess factors influencing implementation of the LSE curriculum in secondary schools in Murang’a County by establishing if adequacy in educational resources, teachers’ level of preparedness, teachers’ attitude and government support influence the implementation of the LSE curriculum in secondary schools. The study was based on Gross’s (1971) LOC Model. The study adopted a descriptive design where it involved 20 school principals/administrators from 20 schools and 80 teachers (4 from each sampled school). Purposive sampling technique was used to select the school principals/administrators while simple random technique was employed to select the teachers to be included in the study population. In this case, questionnaires and interviews were the main methods for data collection. Further, quantitative data was collected and analyzed for descriptive and inferential statistics using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The qualitative data was first grouped into subtopics and coded into the SPSS software for further descriptive statistics. The findings made in this study were presented by use of frequency tables, pie charts and graph. The study findings revealed that teachers were insufficiently trained; a significant number of teachers had a negative attitude towards LSE curriculum in secondary schools; materials and resources in support of the LSE curriculum implementation in secondary schools were scantily available and that the government support towards implementation of the LSE curriculum in secondary schools was insufficient. The study concluded that the major cause of poor implementation of the LSE curriculum in secondary schools in Kenya was: insufficient training of teachers, inadequate materials and resources, negative attitude of the teachers and inadequate government support. The study recommended KIE and the Ministry of education to engage teachers in intensive pre-service and in-service training on LSE implementation to boost their skills and knowledge; KIE and the Ministry of Education intensify awareness of LSE through media and other platforms such as social media; KIE to produce more LSE books and ensure that they are equally supplied to all schools across the country; Schools heads; principals/administrators to offer more support to the teachers by providing enough LSE materials, frequently organizing LSE seminars and workshops for the teachers every term, funding as well as offering moral support to the teachers so as to oversee proper implementation of the LSE curriculum and principals/administrators to develop internal policies to help the teachers strike a balance between the examinable and non-examinable subjects.