Linking Expenditure on Board of Management Teachers’ Wage Bill and Academic Performance: Lessons from Gem Sub-County, Kenya

Abstract

: Teachers are one of the most vital inputs in secondary schools without which countries experience great hindrance to provision of quality education. Gem Sub-County has the highest shortage of secondary school teachers in Siaya County, Kenya. In pressing forth, most schools resort to hiring BOM teachers at the school’s own expense to curb the teacher shortage. This, however, largely compromises the quality of education as huge amounts of money meant for other educational resources are diverted to pay BOM teachers’ wages. This paper is an analysis of the relationship between the expenditure on BOM teachers’ wage bill and academic performance at Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) in Gem Sub-County. A target population of 38 head teachers, 190 Heads of Departments and 214 B.O.M teachers were considered for the study. Saturation sampling technique was used to select a sample of 34 principals, 140 Heads of Departments and 194 BOM teachers. Data collection was through document analysis guide and questionnaires for principals, heads of departments and BOM teachers. The content and face validity of the research instruments was established through scrutiny by research experts from the Department of Educational Management and Foundations, Maseno University, Kenya. Reliability of the instruments was determined through piloting in 4 schools that were not part of the sample and test re-test method was used to establish the reliability co-efficient of the questionnaires. Pearson’s r was computed and gave coefficients of 0.78, 0.81 and 0.85 for principals, heads of departments and BOM teachers’ questionnaires at a p-value of 0.01, respectively. Quantitative data was analyzed by descriptive statistics and presented in form of bar graphs, percentages and frequencies and inferential statistics while qualitative data was analyzed on an ongoing process thematically as they emerged. The study established a significant positive correlation of 0.645 in 2013 and 0.670 in 2014 between expenditure on BOM teachers’ wages and KCSE performance. This paper adds to the growing corpus on studies that seek to provide platforms within which stakeholders in the education sector can base their policies.