Effectiveness of board of governors in addressing teacher shortages in public secondary schools in Kilungu district Makueni county,Kenya

Abstract

Theboards of governors (B.O.G) are legally mandated by the ministry of education under theeducation act Cap 211 to manage secondary schools in Kenya. Their immediate roles havenot been defined in the laws and there are no standards that have been adopted to measuretheir effectiveness. This study has been necessitated by limited literature on the roleof boards of governors in addressing teacher shortages in public secondary schools in Kenya.There has been public hue and cry for long due to continued poor performance in KCSEexaminations in many schools hence high wastage rate due to costly investment entailed in financing secondary education. Examination results in Kenya are very importantbecause th€y",'determine the future destiny of students. Thus, education system in Kenya is examination grade oriented and is affected by the number of qualified teachershandling the students. This study was intended to investigate the effectiveness of boardof governors in addressing teacher shortage in public secondary schools. The study was conducted in Kilungu district. The specific objectives formulated for the study include:to determine the extend of teacher shortage in the district, to establish whether B.O.G members' level of education has effect in tackling the problem of teacher shortage,to determine' whether B.O.G members occupation has influence in posting of teachersto schools by the T.S.c. and to determine the effect of B.O.G members personal characteristics in posting of teachers to school by the T.S.C. Five research questions based on objectives were formulated to guide in the study. The review of literature focusedon the literature related to teacher recruitment, shortage and placement. This entails education before independence, teacher recruitment, legal framework of the B.O.G, decentralization of governance in education. However, this study is hoped to generate new knowledge that widens horizons of existing knowledge concerning the boardof governors that could help -tJiem improve their managerial abilities that facilitate results based informed decision in relation to addressing the problem of teacher shortages. The study employed survey design. Twelve schools out of twenty public secondaryschools in the district were purposively sampled for the study. Sixty teachers (five from each school) and thirty six members of the B.O.G (three from each school) were randomly selected and requested by the researcher to respond to relevant questionnaire items. Twelve head teachers from the sampled schools also participated in the study. The sample size consisted 108 respondents. Data were collected by means of questionnaires and interview schedules which were administered by the researcher. The data collected were analyzed using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS). Statisticalanalysis was used to analyse closed ended items and descriptive statistics open endeditems. Findings were presented in frequency percentage tables and bar graphs. The studyfound that level of education of members of B.O.G affected their effectiveness in exercisingtheir mandate to address the problem of teacher shortage and B.O.G members supported the schools to have adequate number of teachers. The findings also revealed that there is no clear government policy on training of B.O.G members. The study recommended that members of B.O.G should have set educational standard before being appointed into schools board and there is need to incorporate some moral issues in the T.S.Cguidelines which will cater for issues of nepotism, favoritism and tribalism.