Teachers’ perceptions of relationship between performance appraisal policy and good governance in public secondary schools in Njoro sub county, Kenya

Abstract

Kenya’s goal to be a middle-income economy by the year 2030 will depend significantly on quality education and training geared towards producing a highly competitive workforce. To realize this goal, Teachers Service Commission adopted the performance appraisal policy to aid in carrying out evaluations. The evaluations are meant to improve practice in schools thereby enhancing accountability, transparency, effectiveness and efficiency, all of which are aspects of good governance. Despite its inception in 2012, only a few studies have been done to determine influence of performance appraisal policy and students’ performance but none on performance appraisal and good governance. This study therefore intends to fill this knowledge gap through determining teachers’ perceptions of relationship between performance appraisal policy and good governance in public secondary schools in Njoro Sub County. This study used convergent parallel mixed methods research design. The study population included teachers in public secondary schools in Njoro Sub-county that have a total population of 365. Multistage sampling procedure was used which employed proportionate, purposive and simple random sampling. The first stage involved obtaining 30% of the total population in each ward, thereafter purposive sampling was carried out to select teachers who had been employed for at least two years and finally simple random sampling to pick 109 teachers as the sample size. For the interview, 15 principals were randomly selected from the five Wards. Two instruments, namely, Teachers’ questionnaire and Principals interview schedule were used. The instruments were validated by supervisors and public policy experts and pilot tested on teachers in public secondary schools in one ward of Molo Sub-County. Reliability was estimated using cronbach’s alpha coefficient and a coefficient of 0.857 was obtained from the teacher’s questionnaire thus considered acceptable. The quantitative data collected was analysed using Pearson’s correlation coefficient. Hypotheses were tested at 5% level of significance. Qualitative data obtained from interviews were first coded then analysed using Nvivo. The results obtained from public secondary schools gave statistically significant relationship between performance appraisal policy and good governance. Also, institutionalization and team building had statistically significant relationship with all the good governance indicators except collaboration that had no significant relationship with all the good governance indicators. The findings will inform the national government through MOEST, TSC on whether performance appraisal that was brought to enhance good governance in public secondary schools has actually achieved that mandate or not.