The Role Of Head Of Department As Perceived By Teachers And Secondary School Heads Of Department In Tigania East Sub-County, Meru County, Kenya

ABSTRACT

Despite the effort being put by government in regard to establishing good management of task areas by various managers of secondary schools to provide quality education in Kenya, this has not been fully realized especially in Tigania East Sub-county .This study was prompted by the challenges and complexities that surround the role of HODs as middle level managers in executing their responsibilities. The study attempts to address the influential role HODs play to ensure that there is quality work done by department members, given that they are accountable for the quality of work in their departments. The purpose of the study was to assess the role of HODs as perceived by teachers and Heads of department of secondary schools in Tigania East Sub-county. The study focused on the actual roles HODs were playing and expected role on key administrative areas on curriculum and instructions, school finance, teachers management, management of students, management of physical facilities and school community relations. The study was guided by the following objectives: to investigate the perception of teachers and HODs regarding the roles of HOD; to find out how the changing roles of HOD influence the perception of HODs and teachers ; to determine the roles HODs are performing outside their mandate as well as the pre-requisite knowledge and skills and finally to seek recommendations on ways of making teachers and HODs maintain positive perception of the changing roles of Head of department. The findings of the proposed study are expected to have both theoretical and practical implications for the future development and operations of HODs of secondary schools in Kenya considering expanded responsibility due to curriculum changes and immerging issues. The guiding theory in this study is the role theory. The study used a descriptive survey design. The targeted population for this study was 38 public secondary schools in Tigania East Sub-county. Ten schools were selected out of which four were county schools while six were day secondary schools. They were selected through purposive and simple random sampling method. Questionnaires and interview schedule were used in data collection. The collected data were analyzed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS). The findings were presented by use of frequency tables, pie charts and bar charts. The findings showed that HODs play an active role in curriculum development and implementation, human resource management, students' affairs, management of physical facilities and school community relations. However HODs lack regular workshops and seminars where they could be inducted on various managerial skills to improve their quality of service delivery in their departments. The study also showed that teachers and HODs perceived HODs as lacking some necessary skills for running their departments well. Some of the skills they felt were lacking included information technology, time management, supervision and also record keeping. Some HODs felt that the responsibilities delegated to them by the principals were overwhelming and this caused role overload on their part. The study recommends that the Ministry of education science & technology and Teachers service Commission organize regular induction workshops and seminars for HODs. At the same time the teachers‟ employer should consider remunerating HODs according to their performance in the new role. The HODs appointed by boards of management of secondary schools to be subjected to the same induction courses just like their TSC appointed counter parts. Recommendations for further research on related areas were suggested. These include the perception of students on the roles of HOD and the role of Kenya Education Management Institute in the training of HODs in preparation for their managerial roles