Management practices and students’ academic performance in national examinations in public secondary schools in kiambu county, kenya

Abstract

The study examined the extent to which management practices used by schol principals influence students’ academic performance in national examinations in public secondary schols in Kiambu County, Kenya. The objectives of the study were four fold, namely: (i) to examine the extent to which planing techniques of available human and physical resources influence students’ academic performance;(i) determine efect of strategies aplied to fast track efective teaching on students’ academic performance; (i) to establish the relationship betwen student suport services and students’ academic performance (iv) to establish the efect of monitoring of teaching and learning proceses on students’ academic performance in public secondary schols in the study locale. The study adopted a descriptive corelation research design. Combinations of stratified and simple random sampling techniques were aplied to select 26 principals from public secondary schols in Kiambu County. In-depth data was generated using semi-structured questionaires from principals. The findings revealed that here was an asociation betwen most of the identified management variables such efective planing of human and physical resources, organizational strategies, curiculum leadership, control measures and students academic performance in most of the top performing schols in the county. These management echniques were rarely used in low performing schols in the county. It is recommended that strategic management techniques for schol principals should be intensified in al secondary schols in Kiambu County through regular retraining and overal profesional development