Efficiency of Mathematics Teachers in Public Primary Teacher Training Colleges in Kenya

ABSTRACT The central problem of this study is that despite the critical role of mathematics education in promoting numerical literacy, students' performance in this subject is not up to standard. Factors leading to this dismals performance have not been adequately investigated and well understood, hence hindering development of mathematics education in the country of Kenya. The purpose of this study was to determine the efficiency of mathematics teachers in the primary teachers training colleges in Kenya. The study sampled mathematics students in their final year of study in each of the public primary teachers training colleges in the country. Purposive sampling technique in the form of female and male mathematics students this ended with an equal number of 16 students per college, yielding to 262 respondents. The main instrument used had 16 itemed closed ended question Likert scaled using a five point scale, where 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Not sure, 4 = Agree, 5 = Strongly agree. The chosen students rated each of the items by indicating the extent to which they agree or disagree. Data was collected using questionnaire for each of the students and was analyzed using frequencies, percentage distributions, SPSS's descriptive statistics showing mean and t-test. The major finding was that the student rated their teacher's efficiency as satisfactory to the rate of 3.68 out of 5. The items that came out as not satisfactory were, the teachers do not supervise and correct student's work in time, and that they do not have enough time for individual correction. Based on these findings, it is recommended that, more investigation should be done to ascertain why teachers do not have enough time to supervise individual students work. Mathematics requires individual attention for better understanding and with this finding the cause of our poor performance in the subject right at primary stage.