A study of tile impact of in-service training on performance Of headteachers of public secondary schools in Bomet District - Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the relevance of in-service training and its importance to public secondary school headteachers in Bomet District in the Rift Valley Province. The study targeted 70 headteachers of pubic secondary schools in Bomet District and out of the target population, a sample of thirty-four (34) head teachers was drawn using simple random sampling. Four (4) headteachers were used in the pre-testing to test the reliability of the instrument before commencement of the main study and collection of completed questionnaires. The researcher also interviewed three officials of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, that is, the District Education Officer, District Inspector of Schools and the Education Officer in-charge of secondary administration in the district. The data obtained from the field was analyzed using frequencies and percentages. Summaries of qualitative data were made, and using the SPSS programme the researcher was able to analyze the data more accurately. 41- The researcher found out that 17.6% of headteachers had not attended any form of -. in-service training, 50% of the respondents reported that the in-service courses on otTer were never evaluated, 52.9% of the respondents described the in-service training as inadequate and 44.1% reported that there was no transparency in the selection of those to be trained. The respondents further reported that there was increase of performance after training (70.6%), while 79.4% reported that the courses on offer were relevant. This supports research conducted by Kalai (1998), Orner (1996), Iravo (2002) and Wachira (1996) on in-service training. Xll Effort should be made by the appointing agencies to in-service headteachers before they are appointed to serve in the position of headteacher. Agencies that offer in-service courses should evaluate their courses to. know whether the target groups are benefiting from the in-service training. The in-service training should be done transparently when it comes to selection of those to attend. Every effort should be made to train all. The study can be replicated to cover a larger part of the country, for example, a province. Other studies can be done to cover the problems that headteachers face in the performance of their duties. -. X