Analysis of the relationship between school management practices and the implementation of human resource development in public primary schools in Nyeri county, Kenya

Abstract

Practices adopted by school management play an important role in promoting human resource development dynamics of teachers. Schools ensure that teachers are comfortable while executing their duties. However, in many public primary schools in Nyeri County, the situation is quite different with implementation human resource development facing numerous challenges. There is promotion of few teachers, low teacher performance, teacher indiscipline and lack of morale among teachers for career progression. Thus, the purpose of this study was to analyze the relationship between school management practices and implementation of human resource development in public primary schools in Nyeri County, Kenya. The objectives; to establish the relationship between teachers‘ induction practices and the implementation of human resource development in public primary schools; to analyze the relationship between teachers‘ professional development practices and the implementation of human resource development in public primary schools; to assess the relationship between teacher motivation practices and implementation of human resource development in public primary schools and to find out the relationship between teacher performance appraisal practices and the implementation of human resource development in public primary schools. The human capital management theory and the human resource management theory guided this study. The study adopted mixed methodology and concurrent triangulation design was applied. The target population included 400 headteachers, 1600 teachers, 400 chairpersons of school BoMs and the eight (8) sub county TSC Human Resource Officers totaling to 2408 from which a sample of 240 respondents were obtained. Stratified sampling was applied to select a sample size of eight (8) headteachers, 216 teachers and eight (8) chairpersons of school BoMs. Eight (8) Sub County TSC Human Resource Officers were purposively selected. The questionnaires were used to collect quantitative data from headteachers and teachers whereas interviews were used to collect qualitative data from chairpersons of school BoMs and Sub-county TSC Human Resource Officers. Piloting was conducted in Nyeri County among 24 respondents to establish validity, reliability, credibility and dependability of the research instruments. Validity was enhanced by piloting of instruments prior to collecting the final data. To enhance credibility, adjustments of the tools were done according to the opinion obtained from respondents during piloting and the advice provided by supervisors. Interactive questioning was used to enhance dependability. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (frequencies and percentages) and inferential statistics (the Pearson‘s Product Moment Correlation Test Analysis) with the help of SPSS Version 24 and presented using tables. Qualitative data was analyzed thematically and presented in narrative forms. The study established that implementation of human resource development programmes has been a challenge in many public primary schools. Very few primary school teachers are promoted as a way of improving their performance, many of them absent themselves from work and fail complete syllabus in time whereas many rarely undertake career progression activities. Thus, the study recommends that headteachers of public primary schools should put in place measures to ensure effective implementation of the outlined induction processes. The Ministry of Education should formulate managerial training content for the headteachers and ensure that such materials reach and are accessible to all headteachers of public primary schools. School managers should set aside money to adequately motivate teachers. The Teachers Service Commission should simplify the process of appraising teachers.