Effects of Secondary School Principals' Mobility on school effectiveness in North Rift Region of Kenya

Abstract

movement brings with it changes in leadership styles which influence student outcomes and school effectiveness. Despite the existence of Principals' mobility in secondary schools in Kenya, many studies done have concentrated on instructors turnover and ignored the effect of school leadership change on school effectiveness. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of principals' mobility in secondary schools' effectiveness as perceived by the teachers in North Rift Region. The study was anchored on the labour market theory which postulates migration of labour from regions of poor conditions to regions with better opportunities. The study used ex post facto research design to explore the causes of mobility and determine the perceived outcomes of principals' mobility in secondary schools. Schools that had experienced change of principals since the year 2006 were put into three strata of national, provincial and district schools. Purposive sampling was used to pick the only national school in the region and proportionate stratified sampling was applied to obtain representative sample from the remaining two strata. Simple random sampling was finally applied to obtain 35 schools where 242 respondents that had experienced transition of principals were obtained from document analysis. This study mainly used the questionnaire, interview and the document analysis to obtain data for analysis. The instruments were piloted through test-retest and reliability coefficient was calculated using Cronbach's coefficient of Alpha, and a coefficient of 0.815 was obtained which was considered sufficient enough to render the instruments reliable. Content and face validation of the instruments were done by the lecturers in the school of education. Descriptive statistics were used to determine and explain proportions. One way ANOV A and Multiple Linear Regression was utilized to find the significance of the identified factors influencing mobility and whether there was a significant relationship between principals' mobility and teacher/school characteristics. Pearson correlation analysis was employed to determine whether there's a relationship between mobility of principals and school performance and one sample t-test was utilized to find out the types and factors of mobility that highly influences principals mobility. The findings revealed that school location, school type, religious affiliation, security and mismanagement were found to be significant in influencing mobility of school Principals. It was also revealed that change of headship in schools helps boost teachers morale and teamwork. The study further found that there existed a positive correlation between principals mobility and academic achievement. In conclusion the study posited that change of headship leads to school open climate that is characterized by teachers' high morale and teamwork which in turn leads to improved academic performance. The study therefore recommends that the Teachers Service Commission should develop a policy governing principals transfers that incorporates a term limit of 5-6 years. It further recommends that change of school principals should be done periodically so as to create an open school climate which has a strong bearing on the learning environment and in theacademic achievement of students.