Influence of School Environmental Characteristics on Retention of Secondary School Teachers in Homa Bay County, Kenya

Abstract

The present study investigated the influence of school environmental characteristics on retention of secondary schoolteachers in Homa Bay County of Kenya.The study adopted an ex-post facto research design.For a population of one thousand eight hundred and one (1801) teachers, according to Krejcie and Morgan (1970) table of specification, three hundred and twenty (320) teachers were recommended to be appropriate and for a population of 295 principals, one hundred and sixty-nine (169) were appropriate.This study used questionnaires as the instrument of data collection. Two sets of questionnaires were used; one for the school principals and another for the teachers.To enhance validity of the instrument, a pilot study was conducted in twenty selected schools in the neighboring Migori County. This involved the ten principals and two teachers from each school.In this study, internal consistency reliability of the instruments was obtained by computing Cronbach’s alpha (α) using SPSS and a Cronbach’s Alpha of α= .705 was reported.Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used in data analysis. The findings indicated that there was a significant fairly moderate, positive correlation between the two variables [r = .463, n=422, p<.05], with high levels of conducive school environment associated with high teacher retention rate.The study recommends that the Teachers Service Commission should develop a strict policy governing teachers transfers that incorporates a term limit of 5-6 years