Factors influencing performance of community development training centers: the case of Kitui county, Kenya

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate factors influencing performance of community development training centers, the case study of Kitui central sub county, Kitui County, Kenya.Performance is key in economic growth of the nation and its citizens. When a nation implements effective and sufficient training centers, the citizens get an opportunity to empower themselves economically. This study used the following specific objectives in investigating the main objective; influence of free primary and secondary education on performance of community development training centers, influence of availability of training resources on performance of community development training centers in Kitui Central Sub-county, Kitui County, Kenya, influence of level of staffing and quality of trainers as part of government capacity building and resource on performance of community development training centers in Kitui Central Sub-county, Kitui County, Kenya, influence of curriculum offered on the performance of community development training centers in Kitui Central Sub-county, Kitui County, Kenya. The target population was constituted by trainees in community development training centers and the team of staff in community development training centers. A sample of 30% was sufficient in making the inference about the whole population. A questionnaire research instrument having open ended, closed and rating questions was used. After data had been collected it was keyed into computer data processing software (SPSS version 20) for further analysis. Results of the study were presented in simple descriptive Tables of frequencies and percentages. A cross tabulation of independent variables was finally computed for a chi- square test in order to infer the population. The study found out that free primary and secondary education was a factor that influenced performance of community development centres in Kitui Central Sub County. It was also discovered that majority of community development training centers lacked some important resources. The resources missing included; planes, knitting machines, plumping wares among others. The study also found out that staffing in most of community development training centers was low and this greatly affected the performance of these centers. Finally curriculum covered was playing important part in performance of these centers. The study concluded that above factors are key to performance and a great emphasis ought to be given to their operationalization.