Monitoring And Evaluation Practices And Perfomance Of County Funded Education Projects In Makueni County, Kenya.

ABSTRACT

The Devolution Act and Implementation Guidelines place great emphasis on the monitoring and evaluation of county funded education projects. In Counties, the responsibility of monitoring is placed upon the various stakeholders who are responsible for implementation of the project. For monitoring and evaluation of projects to be effective, one must ask the right questions, investigate the real issues and generate relevant information to enable those monitoring and evaluating the projects to make an accurate assessment of the project. Project managers are always looking forward to seeing public projects perform well. This involves finishing the project on time, within budget, meeting end product specifications, meeting customer needs and requirements and meeting management objectives. Despite the quest for project success, many county funded education projects in Makueni County have continuously experienced time overrun, budget overrun, unmet end product specifications, unmet customer needs and requirements and unmet management objectives. Influence of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) practices is vital for tracking and measuring results and throwing light on the causes of the challenges faced in managing county funded education projects. This project sought to investigate the effect of Monitoring and Evaluation Practices on performance of county funded education projects in Makueni County. The objectives of the study were to establish the extent to which training of the M&E staff, stakeholder’s involvement, M&E planning and use of baseline survey influenced performance of county funded education projects in Makueni County. The research design used is descriptive survey. The study targeted 31 county funded education projects in Makueni County. A Stratified random sampling technique was used in selecting the sample of projects for data collection. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect primary data. Numerical data that was collected using questionnaires was coded, entered and analyzed with help of a computer Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) version 20 software Programme. Both qualitative and quantitative data analysis technique was used to analyze the data. Thematic analysis techniques were used to analyze qualitative data collected in the open ended questions. Descriptive statistics such as means, standard deviation, frequencies and percentages was used to describe the data. The findings of the study were presented in graphs, tables and figures for easier understanding. Results show that in all sub-counties projects’ M&E teams underwent M&E training, participated in baseline surveys in form of public participation and were privy to the M&E plans developed by the county M&E unit. Spearman correlation showed a positive relationship of 0.494 between M&E plan and project performance. Particularly, it showed that on average, M&E training and stakeholder involvement had statistically significant correlation with project performance at 0.6 and 0.7 respectively. From multiple regression, it was inferred that stakeholder involvement, M&E planning, use of baseline survey and M&E staff training had significant influence on performance of county funded education projects. The study recommends that the M&E officers should undergo continuous training on project monitoring and evaluation. The study further recommends that stakeholders in projects should be involved in M&E activities to enhance ownership and accountability