Influence of School Strategies on Internal Efficiency in Public Tuition Free Day Secondary Schools in Nairobi County, Kenya

Abstract

The purpose for this study was to establish the influence of instituted schools strategies on internal efficiency in public tuition free day secondary schools in Nairobi county. Five research questions guided the study: How does the student cohort enrollment compare to the required class enrollment threshold cohort? How does the student true cohort completion rate compared to the expected cohort output? How does the KCSE performance index of the student true cohort compare to their KCPE results? To what extent have the schools management strategies instituted improved their internal efficiency? The study adopted concurrent triangulation mixed research method with quantitative and qualitative approaches that included descriptive surveys and phenomenological designs respectively. The target population comprised of government teachers and Form Four students. Stratified and simple random sampling technique sampled the schools and the subject teachers while simple random sampling sampled class teachers. The school principal and the students were purposively selected. Document that included admission and class registers, KCSE manual work sheets and curriculum and co-curriculum were also purposively selected. Data was collected through questionnaire, discussion guide and document analysis guides. The quantitative data was analyzed by use of descriptive statistics that are mean, standard deviation and percentages while qualitative data analyzed by formation of categories and themes. The findings showed that the school had good enrollment at entry point of 94% but low at exit point occasioned by dropouts and transfers hence, translating into a completion rate of 51%. The academic performance was poor reflected with an improvement in 33.3% of the school while most students failed to attain university entry grade of C plus. The enrollment strategies appeared to be effective unlike for school completion and academic performance. Therefore the internal efficiency was low and needed further improvement. The recommendations for improvement include change of Form One placement criteria to day schools from random to direct placement, full financial support for needy students, construction of perimeter walls and a new standardized and progressive evaluation technique.