Impact of Principals’ Recognition on Retention of Secondary School Teachers’ in Homa Bay County of Kenya

Abstract

The present study investigated the impact of principals’ recognition on retention of secondary school teachers’ 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 the table, 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.The researcher interviewed eighteen (18) principals picked from the six sub-counties including the two purposefully picked national schools in Homa Bay County. This study used questionnaires and interview schedule as the instrument of data collection. The researcher developed questionnaires and interview schedule to collect the data. 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 = .793 was reported. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used in data analysis. The study reported that there was a significant plausible positive correlation between the two variables [r = .604, n = 422, p<.05], with more teacher recognition by the principal associated with high teacher retention rate. The study recommended that the School principals should avoid the use of autocratic style of leadership in the management of schools as it does not allow teachers to give off their best and discourages teachers from working with principals who displays this kind of leadership behavior.