Effectiveness of board of governors in the management of public secondary schools in Londiani division of Kericho district, Kenya

Abstract

Personnel and resource management of education institutions affects the standard level of the knowledge and skills that the learner achieves at a given level of learning. Effectiveness of the managers of these institutions to a gr~ater extent determine their success and the caliber of the learners. The purpose of this study was to test the often made notion that the B.O.G are not effective in managing secondary schools. The main area was their effectiveness in resource management, decision making process, provision of physical facilities, recruitment of teachers and disciplining of teachers among other roles of B.O.G. The literature review was organized under the following sub headings: Review of literature related to the effectiveness of Board of Governors in other parts of the world and the review of related literature in Kenya. The study was a survey in design and the targeted population consisted of all the 17 public secondary schools in Londiani Division, Kericho District. Stratified sampling was used to select (68) B.O.G members from the 17 schools. Purposive sampling was used to select (17) principals, (17) P.T.A chairpersons, (1) D.E.O AND (1) A.E.O. In this study one set of questionnaire was developed by the researcher as the research instrument. Piloting of the instrument was done in (2) schools which included (2) Principals (8) B.O.G members and (2) P.T.A chairpersons. The responses showed that the instruments were able to collect valid data. The questionnaire was divided into three parts. Part A consisted of short questions and demographic data of the respondent. Part B of the questionnaire consisted questions designed to gather data on B.O.G tasks assessment on the effectiveness of management in public schools. While part C consisted of open ended questions on matters relating to the tasks of B.O.G The data collected was checked, grouped and coded for analysis. The analysis of the dat was done by computing frequencies and percentages for demographic and short questions on school variables. Means, Standard deviation and analysis of variance was used in description of data. The recommendations of the study are as follows: I. Teacher training colleges and universities should include courses that will inculcate skills necessary for effective financial management in schools so that if principals find themselves without funds to employ a bursar! account clerk, they can still handle financial activities II. That more and regular seminars and in-service programmes should be orqanized for principals, bursars! accounts clerk and BOG members to enable them acquire skills and knowledge necessary for effective and prudent administration and supervision of schools' financial activities iii. The government should intervene by giving bursaries, salaries and project funding!grants IV. Principals should be more transparent on funds accrued from other sources of income other than fees. For instance money accrued from hiring school facilities, farm produce and house rents should be receipted and accounted for. v. The school bursars should be trained on financial management especially in those schools with untrained bursars, through seminars and In-service programmes vi. Principals must play their supervisory roles by monitoring the bursars on school financial transactions vii. All the schools must develop a 5 years strategic plan which can be used to draw yearly or quarterly work plan. The following areas are suggested for further research i. This study was limited to a sample drawn from Londiani, division kerioho district. Other studies could be carried out in other parts of Kenya to test the replicability of the findings. ii. The study was carried out in public secondary schools. Therefore another study may be carried out in private secondary schools to establish whether similar findings would be obtained as well as the primary schools.