Principals’ Stress in Public Secondary Schools in Kisumu County, Kenya

Abstract

Stress of principals in public secondary schools has been a serious problem to parents, the government and the Ministry of Education in developed and developing countries including Kenya. The problem has generated a lot of questions and debate for an immediate action to be taken if such cases like poor results, school drop- out, frequent transfers and principals’ suicide are to be avoided. Despite the fact that principals of secondary schools have been trained in leadership and management, there is no information about the reasons why principals are stressed and cannot perform their work properly. The purpose of this study was to examine the level of stress among principals, and the objective was to establish the reasons why principals are stressed in their work performance. The study adopted the Cognitive Activation Theory of Stress (CATS) developed by Levine and ursin (1991). It was also based on a conceptual frame work explaining the aspects of stress in relation to principals’ work performance. Related literature for the study revealed that major sources of principals’ stress were workload, lack of teaching and learning resources, uncalled for transfer, indiscipline of students, and lack of adequate finance to manage the schools. The area of study was Kisumu County. The target population was two hundred and twenty principals, two hundred and twenty deputy principals and seven SubCounty Quality Assurance and Standards Officers (SCQASOs) in the county. Stratified random sampling was used to select schools, while purposive, stratified and simple random sampling methods were used to select both principals and the deputy principals in various categoriesof schools. Saturated sampling technique was used to select Sub- CountyQuality Assurance and Standards Officers. Instruments for data collection included questionnaires, observation check-list schedule, document analysis and interview schedule. Questionnaire was used to gather information from both principals and deputy principals and interview schedule was used by the researcher to collect data from the Sub-County Quality Assurance and Standards Officers of the County. Document analysis was employed to gather information about the Principals’ transfers, category of schools and performance of students in the national examinations from the Teachers Service Commission and the Ministry of Education department respectively. Observation check-list was used by the researcher to collect data on the availability of teaching and learning resources in schools. Data were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency counts, mean, percentages and standard deviations using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences Programmed (SPSS). Qualitative data were categorized into emerging themes then reported in verbatim form. The study found out that principals were stressed because of; inadequate funds to run theschools, dealing with human resources, family issues, impromptu meetings, pressure to perform from the stakeholders, uncalled for transfers, indiscipline among the students, students drop outs, lack of enough teachers, inadequate teaching and learning facilities, work overload, absenteeism and lateness of teachers. The study recommended thatmore teachers should be employed in schools to relieve the principals from work overload and more funds to be allocated for schools by TSC and MoE respectively, for appropriate management of schools.