Adherence to government guidelines on infrastructural development and students’ performance at Kenya certificate of secondary education in public day secondary schools in Kirinyaga east sub-county, Kenya

Abstract

Education plays a key role in socializing an individual to fit and participate adequately in development of a society. With this realization, most governments have made access to education a basic right. Nearly all public primary schools in Kirinyaga east Sub County have a day secondary school started next to it. This means shared basic resources at the initial stage. The purpose of this study was to establish the relationship between adherence of government guidelines on infrastructure development in public day secondary schools and student’s performance in Kirinyaga East Sub County. The objectives of the study were to determine the relationship between classroom size and students performance, school ground size and students performance, adherence to government guidelines on sanitation infrastructure and student performance and government guidelines on construction of school library and students performance in public day secondary schools in Kirinyaga East Sub County. This study used descriptive survey design. The target population of the study was 21 principals,181 teachers and 1,199 Form Three students in all the 21 public day secondary schools in the sub county. The researcher used three sets of questionnaires, for principals, teachers and for students . An observation checklist was also used to observe whether government guidelines have been followed on the school physical infrastructure. Quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, SPSS and Microsoft excel .The researcher found out that to a larger extent government guidelines are not adhered to. Most schools had poorly maintained classrooms with broken windows and grills. The schools in their effort to expand flouts government guidelines by having overcrowded classrooms which negatively affects performance. Smaller acreage than the required one showed that co-curricular infrastructure was inadequate. Notable is that none of the schools had a library and the few books in the schools were kept in bookstores .Sanitation infrastructure was wanting in most schools as some were in a sorry state and privacy was an issue .The study concluded that lack of adherence to government guidelines negatively affects performance. The study recommended that school inspection be made regular and the government should set up a fund to build libraries and upgrade upcoming public day secondary schools