Influence Of Capacity Building Heads Of Department On Kcse Performance In Public Secondary Schools In Kericho County, Kenya

ABSTRACT

Education is universally recognized as a vital tool in the course of national development. In order to learn new skills, capacity building of teachers is encouraged. The rationale of this study was to investigate the influence of capacity building Heads of Departments (HODs) on KCSE performance in public secondary schools in Kericho County. In Kericho County the capacity building of heads of department was last conducted in the year 2013 by SMASSE before KEMI took over. The performance of KCSE has been decreasing over the last five years (2013—2017) the least mean score being 3.408 which is below average. The study was guided by the following objectives: To determine the influence of Capacity Building of HODs on Implementation of Curriculum, to determine the influence of Capacity Building of HODs on supervision, to establish the challenges encountered by schools on Capacity Building, and to identify the strategies that can be taken by schools so as to train Heads of Departments at school level so as to improve KCSE performance of public schools in Kericho County. The study was used the Theory of Human Capital Theory by Becker and Gerhart (1996) which gave a deeper insight to this research study. The study adopted descriptive survey design which was suitable for this study. The target population was composed of 200 Principals, 1000 Heads of Departments and 2000 Teachers totaling to 3200. Simple random sampling and purposive sampling was used to get a sample of 1280 respondents. Data were collected using questionnaires and interview schedules. The data obtained was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS Version-21).Both qualitative and quantitative data analysis techniques were used to analyze the collected data which was then presented in form of pie-chats, frequency tables and graphs and thematically explained. The study found out lack of time and financial resources for capacity building for HODs affected curriculum implementation. Majority of the schools held internal seminars to instill efficiency in performance although they had inadequate teachers and incentives. The challenges were critical in terms of inadequate teachers, heavy workload and scarce financial resources. Majority of the respondents preferred the government to sponsor their Capacity Building trainings instead of relying on their already migre salaries. With this in place then there will be success in curriculum implementation through efficiency and effectiveness in learning and performance. In conclusion Principals, HODs and teachers agreed that they had done very little in full curriculum implementation and professional development leading to poor performance in national exams in subsequent years. The study recommends that the TSC and the MoE should constantly review its policies to accommodate changing needs of Teachers and HODs in full Capacity Building. Secondly, establishment of affordable capacity building programmes for all teachers and HODs. Thirdly, the government to sponsor the professional development of all the educators to improve efficiency and effectiveness. A further study in Capacity Building on curriculum implementation was suggested upon completion of this research study in other institutions of learning.