Involved of tutors in decision-making in primary teacher education institutions in Kenya
Résumé
The Problem and Purpose of the Study
The thesis investigated involvement of tutors in decision - making in three selected broad areas in administrative task;
1) Curriculum and instructional program
2) General Curriculum Organization
3) General Management
The study was prompted by the many crises experienced in institutions of learning in Kenya, which in most cases have been blamed on administrators' failure to involve tutors and students in decision-making.
The study attempted to answer six broad research questions:
(1) Who are the key decision-makers in the three selected broad task areas of:
(i) Curriculum and instruction program;
(ii) General curriculum organization
(iii) General management?
(2) To what extent do tutors perceive their roles in decision- making as significant?
(3) To what extent are the tutors actually involved in decision-making?
(4) What is the relationship between tutors involvement in decision- making and tutor satisfaction with their job?
5) What is the relationship between tutors involvement in decision-making and the following selected variables:
5:1 The age of the Principal
5:2 The sex of the Principal
5:3 The years of experience of the principal
5:4 The size of the institution
(6) Does the administrative structure encourage tutors' participation in decision-making?
Method of Study
The sample for the study consisted of six primary teachers education institutions from which six primary teacher education institutions from which six principals and one hundred and twenty tutors were randomly drawn.
The Colleges were selected through stratified sampling method in order to represent evenly the eight administrative Provinces in Kenya: Western, Eastern, Central, Rift Valley, Nyanza, Nairobi, Coast and North Eastern.
Findings of the Study
The results revealed that age, sex and experience of the principal affected the level of tutors' involvement in decision-making.
Principals expressed satisfaction that tutors' involvement in decision-making was generally adequate. But the tutors said it was not adequate.
The key decision-makers in various selected task areas were shown to be in the following order of importance from the highest to the lowest:
(1) Curriculum and Instructional Program
(a) Heads of Department
(b) Deans of Curriculum
(c) Tutors
(d) Principals
(e) Ministry Officials
(2) General Curriculum Organization:
(a) Principals
(b) Deans of Curriculum
(c) Deans of Students
(d) Ministry Officials
(e) Heads of Department
(3) General Management of the Institution:
(a) The Principals
(b) The Deans of Students
(c) The Ministry Officials
(d) The Boards of Governors
(e) The Deans of Curriculum
The results of the study revealed that tutors perceived their involvement in decision-making as significant.
Analysis of tutors' responses showed that their involvement in decision-making in primary teacher education institutions was not adequate (50%), with 15% indicating as very inadequate and 35% indicating as inadequate.
Tutors perceived the style of decision-making used in their institutions in general as autocratic (54.2%) although the majority of them (75%) also said that they were satisfied with their jobs in their present institutions.
The above results might imply that tutors' job satisfaction is multi-factor activity not necessarily affected by the style of decision-making employed by the administration.
The size of the college affected tutors involvement in decision-making.
However, on the whole, results of the study showed low involvement of tutors in decision-making in the three selected task areas.
Majority of the tutors desired to be involved more in decision-making, especially in curriculum and instructional program and general curriculum organization.
The following factors were found to affect the level of tutor involvement in decision-making, the age, sex and experience of the principal.
The younger principals tended to involve their tutors more in decision-making. Also female principals with few years of teaching experience involved their tutors more in decision-making.
Despite the low level of involvement, tutors indicated that they were satisfied with their job and working conditions in their present institutions. The satisfaction of tutors might show that tutors were self-motivated and they felt comfortable without extra responsibilities of making decisions, which do not concern them, though this is an area, which can be researched further in the future.
Conclusion
Tutors involvement in decision-making was found to be very minimal on the whole in primary teacher education institutions. Therefore, viable solutions to the problem need to be found.
It is hoped that when tutors and students participate more in decision-making there will be minimal crises in Kenya's institutions of learning.
Recommendations
From the findings of the study, the following recommendations were made:
(1) Tutors should be encouraged to make decisions especially in the two professional broad task areas of curriculum and instructional program and general curriculum organization.
(2) Adequate channels of communication should be established through which tutors could provide feed back and suggestions.
(3) The Ministry should allow the principals to have more say on delegation of responsibilities to tutors.
(4) More research should be done in the area of education administration, especially on the following topics:
(i) The specific factors that affect teachers' morale and job satisfaction in teacher education institutions.
(ii) What the principals and tutors consider to constitute involvement in decision-making.
(iii) The perception of students of their involvement in decision making in teacher education institutions.
(iv) The available training facilities and resources for educational administrators for post-primary institutions in Kenya.