Influence of management of physical facilities on academic performance of public secondary schools in Mumias west sub-county, Kakamega county, Kenya

Abstract

Management of school facilities is important in improving quality of education in secondary schools. However, in Mumias West Sub-county, the situation different with many public secondary schools registering low grades in national examinations and transiting few students to universities with quality grades. Thus, the study assessed the influence of management of physical facilities on quality of education in public secondary schools in Mumias West Sub-county, Kakamega County, Kenya. The objectives were; to assess the influence of school facility planning, funding, supervision and evaluation strategies on quality of education in public secondary schools. The study was guided by the Broken Windows Theory. The study adopted mixed methods approach and applied concurrent triangulation research design. The study targeted 22 principals, 250 teachers and 220 members of school BOM totaling to 492 respondents. Using Central Limit Theorem, five secondary schools (30% of 22) and 120 respondents (24.39% of 492) were selected. Stratified sampling was applied to create five different strata based on the number of zones. From each zone, one principal and 10 teachers were selected using purposive sampling. Simple random sampling was applied to select 13 members of school BOM from each zone. This procedure enabled the researcher to realize a sample of five principals, 47 teachers and 66 members of school BOM. Questionnaires were used to collect data from teachers whereas interviews were used to collect data from principals and members of school BOM. Piloting was conducted amongst five teachers to establish validity and reliability. Validity was established through expert judgement whereas reliability was determined using test retest method and reliability coefficient, r = 0.761, was obtained using Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Method which indicated higher internal consistency. Qualitative data were analyzed thematically based on the objectives and presented in narrative forms whereas quantitative data were analyzed descriptively and inferentially using ANOVA using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS 23) and presented using tables. The study established that public secondary schools adopt a variety of planning, funding, supervision and evaluation strategies for management of physical facilities. However, the effectiveness of such strategies is still wanting. Thus, the study recommends that the Ministry of Education should enrich management training programme for principals and their deputies to include strategic planning. The Ministry of Education should channel more funds for maintenance, repair and construction of new physical facilities as a way of improving quality of education offered in public secondary schools. Qualified technocrats should be hired to be members of school BOM to help school principals to share much information with education stakeholders on how to conduct effective supervision and improve school infrastructure. Schools should improve their evaluation and monitoring strategies to ensure effective and prudent use of school resources in a manner best suited to improvement of school infrastructure. School BOM should make devise austerity measures which are meant to scale up the monitoring and evaluation measures to be adopted to improve secondary school infrastructure