Composition and Practices of Secondary School Boards of Management: Lessons from Kenya

Abstract

Research provides evidence that school management is the second most important factor that influences students’ achievement after teaching quality. The management sets the conditions under which teachers work. In Kenya, the composition and the responsibilities of secondary school Boards of Management (BOMs) is enacted in the Basic Education Act of 2013. This article analyses the composition and practices of the BOMs based on recent researches. It focuses on the BOM members’ training, skills and competence and performance of their responsibilities. The paper is a theoretical desk-top review of literature on composition and practice school management in Kenya. The findings show that, in some of the school boards, there is blatant breach of guidelines. For instance, some of the BOM members had primary school education as their highest academic qualification against policy. Further, findings indicate that training of the BOM members is not given a priority as required by policy. It is recommended that composition of the board must strictly adhere to government policies. It is also recommended that there is need to train BOM members on policy interpretation, strategy formulation and financial management for them to ably manage schools. This review is important to education theorists and practitioners, and other stakeholders in the field of education