Influence Of School Responsibilities On Prefects’ Academic Work Performance In Public Secondary Schools In Nakuru Sub-County, Kenya

ABSTRACT

Prefects are student leaders elected or appointed and assigned administrative duties in schools.

Besides their school responsibilities, prefects are expected to perform well and attain good

grades in class tests and national examinations like other students. According to reports in

Nakuru District Education Office, students in public secondary school decline academically

when they take up prefects’ responsibilities. Several factors have been put forward that include

influence of newly acquired school responsibilities. This study sought to investigate the

influence of school responsibilities on prefects’ academic work performance in public

secondary schools in Nakuru Sub-County, Kenya. The study used descriptive survey research

design. The population of study consisted of 25 deputy headteachers, 135 class teachers and

450 school prefects in 25 public secondary schools. Purposive sampling technique was used to

select 15 secondary schools and deputy headteachers that participated in the study. A sample of

45 class teachers and 150 school prefects were selected using simple random sampling

technique. Three instruments; the Deputy Headteachers’ interview guide (DHTIG), Class

teachers’ questionnaires (CTQ) and Prefects’ questionnaires (PQ) were used to collect data.

The three data collection tools were checked for content and validity by a team of four experts

from the Department Curriculum Instruction and Educational Management, Egerton

University. DHTIG, CTQ and PQ were piloted for reliability, their reliability coefficients were

0.70, 0.71 and 0.73 respectively. The reliability was estimated using the Cronbach’s Alpha.

Data was analyzed with the aid of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version

17.2. Descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA and Post-Hoc tests were used to analyze data. The

study established that; Majority of the prefects (79.4 %), class teachers (63.8%) and deputy

headteachers (78.6%) were of the view that prefects performed their school responsibilities

well. The results also showed that there was no significant difference in mean scores of

students’ academic work performance before and after appointment as prefects. The results

further revealed that there was a significant difference on prefects’ academic mean scores by

school responsibilities performance category. The study is also expected to; assist prefects

improve their academic performance by striking a balance between their responsibilities and

academics; to inform the policy makers in the Ministry of Education and secondary schools administration on how to improve academic work performance of school prefects.