An assessment of the level of intrapreneurship in public secondary schools in Sabatia sub-county

Abstract

Effective school managers are the most critical and precious resource needed for well managed schools and yet, indeed, are a scarce resource at secondary school level in Kenya. This is manifested in frequent unrest in public secondary schools, sometimes resulting in loss of life, coupled with mounting debt burdens and uncollected fees all of which are indicators of a system facing serious management problems. There was therefore need for research to be undertaken to establish alternate effective management practices that could lead to sustainable systems applicable in school settings. The purpose of this study was to establish the level of intrapreneurship existing in the management of public secondary schools in Sabatia District. The objectives of the study included assessing the existing management practices and measuring the intensity of intrapreneurship in the schools under study using the Corporate Entrepreneurship Assessment Instrument (CEAI) tool. The five constructs of interpreneurial intensity constituted the variables for analysis and formed the basis on which the objectives of the study were assembled. The five variables were; management support, work discretion, rewards/reinforcement, time availability and organizational boundaries. The target population for the study included 30 principals, deputy principals, and heads of departments along with the local education officer. The study employed stratified sampling followed by simple random techniques. A total of 28 schools out of the 30 schools in Sabatia were sampled. The study employed a mixed methods study design. A modified CEAI standardized questionnaire and an interview schedule were used to generate data. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were employed to analyse data collected around the stated variables. The results were as follows: The regression equation indicated that management support, work discretion, time availability, rewards/reinforcement, and organizational boundaries were not significantly related to the enhanced management of schools, R= .514, R-square=.264 and adjusted R-square =.12, F(5, 25) = 1.79, p<'151. From the regression, approximately 26.4% of the variance or changes in enhanced management of schools can be accounted for by confluence of the five independent variables .Rewards/ reinforcement's beta weight of .453, t = 2.415, »< .0123 appears to be the strongest of the five in the prediction of enhanced management of schools. The second highest beta weight occurs for organizational boundaries, and it is .359 (t= 1.898, p< .039). Time availability comes in third with a beta weight of .055 (t = .293 p< .772), the p value is greater than 0.05 and is therefore not a significant predictor of enhanced management of schools. Similarly, management support comes in fourth with a beta weight of -.015 (t = -.079, P = .937). Finally, work discretion with a beta value of -.161 (t= -.883, p = .386), the p value is greater than 0.05 and is therefore not a significant predictor of enhanced management of schools.The findings indicate that most schools in the district are entrepreneurially challenged. It is anticipatedthat the outcomes of this study will contribute to the incorporation of intrapreneurship training programmes in school management curricular at the Kenya Education Management Institute. The ultimate outcome being school principals with business- like approaches to school management.