Influence of Total Quality Management Principles on Performance of Public Secondary Schools in Kajiado North Sub County, Kenya

Abstract

The Ministry of Education is perpetually interested in good performance of schools in the national examinations. This is not always achieved in the many public secondary schools in the country. This performance in national examinations is realized as a result of a number of factors within the school set up that add up to the quality of the school system. Quality in all the facets of the school is what constitutes Total Quality Management, hence excellent performance in the national examinations. Empirical studies done, have not adequately addressed the direct link between TQM and school performance. The purpose of this study therefore, was to establish the influence of TQM principles on performance of public secondary schools in Kajiado North Sub County. Specific objectives of the study include: to establish the influence of Leadership commitment, employee involvement, continuous improvement and customer focus on performance of public secondary schools in Kajiado North Sub County. A review of related literature was carried out and a conceptual framework drawn to express the research premise. A purposeful sampling technique was applied to identify 4 schools out of the 6 public secondary schools in Kajiado North Sub County. To achieve these objectives, data was collected from 4 Principals/ deputy principals, 12 HoD’s, 25 Teachers, and 87 Students. This gave a response rate of 69.72% out of target of 185. Data collection was done through questionnaires for students, teachers and HoDs and an interview guide for principals/deputy principals. Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics and presented using frequency tables, percentages and means. It was established that Employee involvement had the strongest correlation to academic performance at a correlation coefficient (r= .611). It was followed by Continuous improvement (r = .561), Leadership commitment (r= .557) and the least was customer focus (r= .323).The study therefore made the following recommendations: i) Principals to be more pro-active in checking students’ progress, ii) Principals to require accountability from teachers whenever they have been assigned duties, iii) Principals and Heads of Departments to hold more frequent staff meeting/ departmental meetings in order to bring everyone up to speed, iv) Teachers should learn to share best practices with others after training and the same to be documented for the purpose of knowledge institutionalization and v) Schools are encouraged to have more academic days and prize giving days in order to track performance. The Ministry of Education should make follow up on recommendations made by Quality Assurance Officers for implementation, improve on Teacher- student ratio among other necessary resources.