Administrative Challenges Faced by Primary School Head Teachers in Management of Pupils in Embakasi District, Nairobi County-Kenya.

Abstract

The study was influenced by increased concern by the Head teachers and other stakeholders of the increased myriad administrative challenges encountered in Management of pupils following an enactment of Children Act 200 1, which banned corporal punishment in all schools in 200 1 and also the provision of Free Primary Education (FPE) in public primary schools in 2003. The study sought to establish the following study objectives; determine the challenges public primary school head teachers encounter in the management of pupils' welfare; assess whether there are' adequate resources in schools to facilitate the proper learning of pupils; find out the strategies used by head teachers to overcome the challenges of indiscipline among pupils; examine the strategies used by head teachers to overcome challenges related to the lack of resources. A sample of ten public primary schools from a population of forty two schools was randomly selected for the study. The 'respondents were head teachers from the selected (sampled) schools. The data collection was done by the use of questionnaires while data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. From the findings, the study concluded that majority of the head teachers had never attended any training on school administration The head teachers faced administrative challenges in management of the pupils which included lack of parents' cooperation in provision of pupils' requirements for learning as parents believed that everything was catered for in the free primary education programme, high school dropout rates, high teacher pupil ratio, high teaching load, inadequate textbooks and other learning resources, lack of adequate classrooms and furniture and poor sanitation. The study recommends that the government and other stakeholders should address the bottlenecks in the implementation of school policies like hiring of more teaching staff, building more schools which are major administrative challenges facing head teachers in pupils management. Finally, the study recommends that the government and other stakeholders should offer continuous training to the head teachers on pupil management to keep them up-to qate. with skills that will assist them to run their schools effectively.