Effectiveness of school community partnership in educational development in public secondary school in Kenyenya District, Kisii county, Kenya

Abstract

A school is not an island, but part of the community in which it exists. Learners are members of the community. The community also supplies the school with teachers, finances and other physical facilities and it expects the school to transform its learners into able, skilled and knowledgeable people who can serve the nation. School activities should therefore reflect; as far as possible, the nature and aspirations of community. There should be an active partnership between the school and the parents and other stakeholders. The purpose of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of school community partnership in educational development in secondary schools of Kenyenya District. The objective was to investigate, the extent of school community partnership in financial management, curriculum and instruction and decision making. The literature reviewed showed that school community partnership is of utmost importance in helping schools educational development. It also, revealed that where the school does not partner with the community educational development is either slow or hindered hence the need to create a very strong school-community partnership. The study adopted a descriptive study design to collect information summarise, interpret and draw conclusions based on the research findings. Stratified random sampling techniques was used with questions on the questionnaires being structured and unstructured styles, which were considered suitable in explaining why it was important for schools to partner with the community to realize educational development. Since Kenyenya District has a total of only 28 schools, this necessitated for sampling, only 10 schools were involved. Three sets of questionnaire were prepared and administered to ten head teachers (10), forty B.O.G/P.T.A executive (40), fifty teachers (50) and one interview for ten parents (10) who were selected randomly. The collected data was coded and analyzed using SPSS and descriptive data presented in frequencies, charts, graphs and tables. The findings were useful to parents and other community members to realize the importance of good partnership in school affairs. Besides, the findings were found useful to policy makers, head teachers and teachers in school community partnerships issues. Finally, the information gathered established that the school and community partnered in financial management, curriculum and instruction, and decision making. The findings indicated that there was a positive relationship between the school and community participation in student performance in K.C.S.E. The findings further established that there existed problems between the school and the community which needed to be sorted out since they were likely to affect the good partnership revealed by this study.