Strategies Employed By Secondary School Principals To Improve Academic Performance In Embu West District

ABSTRACT The purpose of the study was to establish the strategies employed by secondary school principals to meet their academic performance improvement goals in Embu West District. Three research questions were formulated to guide the study. Research question one aimed at examining the strategies employed by secondary school principals in Embu West District to meet their schools‟ academic performance improvement goals, research question two focussed on establishing the differences between the academic performance improvement strategies employed by principals from well performing and poorly performing schools while research question three sought to identify academic performance improvement lessons that can be learnt from schools that consistently perform well at the KCSE level. The review of literature covered literature on factors affecting academic performance, including student-related factors, home environment factors, and school-related factors. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. The sample was composed of 20 headteachers and 40 teachers. Data were collected by use of structured questionnaires. The findings revealed that majority of the schools always employed strategies on instructional leadership always. It was also revealed that majority of schools employed strategies for clarification of vision and mission. Data further revealed that majority of schools always employed strategies for expectations for success, they also employed strategies for monitoring students progress always and also employed strategies aimed at ensuring opportunity to learn/time on task always. It was revealed that there was no difference in the strategies used by the headteachers in well performing and poorly performing schools. Based on the findings of the study, it was concluded that all schools employed strategies that were aimed at enhancing academic improvement. It was also concluded that there were no difference on strategies used in well performing schools and poor performing schools. The study further concluded that improvement on academic performance did not depend on the use of improvement strategy since schools that performed well and those that performed poorly claimed to employ the same strategies in the same way. In the light of the research findings the researcher concluded that schools must seek to establish factors that lead to poor academic performance and hence find ways of addressing such factors. It was also concluded that the government should be involved in the running of schools by providing the necessary resources and materials that would enhance improvement of academic performance. lastly it was concluded that schools that deteriorate every year should evaluate all aspects of learning to establish the root cause of the same hence find ways of solving the problem. Taking the limitations and delimitations of the study, the researcher suggested that a study on school based factors that influence student academic performance should be conducted, a study on student related factors that influence their academic performance should be conducted and also a study on headteachers leadership styles and their influence on academic performance should be conducted.