The effectiveness of board of governors in recruitment of teachers in public secondary schools in Taita-Taveta District, Kenya

Abstract

In Kenya before independence teachers were employed by different missionary agencies to teach and help in spreading the word of God to the "natives". Each missionary agency had its own terms and condition of service. After independence TSC was established by an Act of Parliament TSC Cap 212 (1967) to employ and manage all teachers in the country's public schools. There was tremendous growth of pupil/student enrollment hence teachers were being recruited after graduating from teachers colleges. In 1998 the government banned employment of teachers due to economic depression. This ban was lifted in the year 2000 but devolved to various TSC agencies. In public secondary schools recruitment of teachers was devolved to the BOGs whose performance was heavily accused of malpractices. The purpose of this study was to establish the effectiveness of BOG in recruitment of teachers in public secondary schools in Taita- Taveta District, Coast Province. The research was intended to find out whether the outcry of malpractices in teacher recruitment country wide was true or false, taking Taita- Taveta District as a representative. The major factors considered in this research were the recruitment processes undertaken by the teachers selection panels. The yard-stick of the performance was the expected or ideal recruitment process. The literature _review was divided into seven(7) sub-headings; personal management which discussed the general procedure of advertising vacancies in an organization and various ways of apply posts advertised. Candidates should be shortlisted as very suitable candidates who should be called for interview and those shortlisted as possible candidates are called when the former disappoint the interviewing panel or they are inadequate while unsuitable candidates are politely rejected. It was established that TSC Cap 212 of the Laws of Kenya empowers TSC to delegate its functions to persons or institutions hence devolution of recruitment of teachers to the BOGs in the recent past is within the law. Decentralization or devolution was intended to make schools and local communities manage their local educational resources. The primary aim of decentralization was to contain teachers in schools with perennial shortage of teachers. Selection guidelines of candidates was issued by TSC headquarters outlining composition of selection panels. Few examples of malpractices as reported in print media were cited. Also discussed was history of graft which stemmed from Confucian tradition where the world's elite in civil service received bribe to supplement the low government salary. From the literature review a conceptual framework was designed which showed a flow chart of the recruitment process. The study used ex-post facto research design. Five sets of questionnaires were designed by the researcher and validated by a lecturer in the Department of Educational Administration and Planning of the University of Nairobi. The instruments reliability was found to be 0.89 for head teachers questionnaire, for deputy headteachers was 0.84 and for recruited teachers was 0.93 , while for subject head was 0.91 and BOG member 0.87. The targeted population was 230 respondents. A table developed by Krejcie and Morgan (1970) as cited in Mulusa (1988) p. 86 was used to determine the sample size. Then the sample consisted of 30 headteachers, 30 deputy headteacher, 59 recruited teachers , 46 subject heads and 30 BOG members. The data obtained was analysed and interpretted using descriptive statistics (frequencies and percentages). The study established that among the Selection Panel members who participated in teacher recruitment in Taita-Taveta District, it was among the BOG members who possessed low academic qualification. Most of the candidates received their letters of invitation for interview when there were less than five(5) days before the day of interview. This was a violation of the 14 days requirement. The schools came up with their own suitable subject combinations. Some Selection Panel members had vested interest and wanted candidates of their choice being given undue advantage over others. Results of this study indicated that candidates coming from within the district were preferred to those coming from outside, the locals were believed to be truthfully willing to stay in the schools for more than five years. There was no case of bribery reported by the respondents. In conclusion, the current recruitment process has inherent weaknesses that need to be addressed urgendy inorder to win both applicants and general public's confidence. It is therefore recommended that TSC should take advantage of the modern information technology to set up a national database of all qualified unemployed teachers together with their relevant details. The TSC staffing division could use this information to recruit and post the teachers in needy schools instead of the BOGs doing it. This research recommends that headteachers apart from the teaching training should also be in possession of atleast a Diploma in Human Resource Management if they are to be effective in teacher management.