AN INVESTIGATION OF THE INFLUENCE OF INSECURITY ON THE MANAGEMENT OF SYLLABUS COVERAGE IN PUBLIC PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN WEST POKOT COUNTY, KENYA

There is a current concern on the escalating cases of insecurity among the pastoralists’ communities in the Republic of Kenya which calls for an urgent need to investigate its influence of insecurity on the management of syllabus coverage in public primary schools in West Pokot County. The study looked into the objective on the influence of insecurity syllabus coverage. This study was guided by Securitization and School Management theories. The study embraced mixed methodology and the concurrent triangulation design. The target population was 1,161 consisting of 80 head teachers and 611 teachers, 4 Quality Assurance Officers, 465 BoM members and 1 county director of education. Stratified sampling was used to choose schools from the 4 sub counties each giving 6 schools, from where 9 teachers per school were sampled randomly and selected to come up with a total of 216 teachers. The 24 head teachers were selected purposively. The total sample was 245 participants consisting of 216 primary school teachers, 24 head teachers, 2 QASOs, 2 BoM members and 1 County Director of Education which was 21.10 % of the target population. Teachers were randomly sampled while QASO officers and BoM members were purposively sampled. Questionnaires with Likert scales were used for teachers and students. There were interview schedules for the County Education Officer, QASO officers, BoM members and a documents’ analysis was developed. The research instruments were piloted in public primary schools in the county which were excluded from the final research sample. The researcher asked experts and the supervisors to scrutinize instruments for validity. For reliability, test retest method was used. A Pearson Correlation Coefficient of 0.800 was achieved in the piloting. Concurrent triangulation was used to ensure credibility. An in-depth interview was used to test dependability of qualitative instruments. Quantitative data was analyzed in descriptive statistics and presented in tables, frequencies and percentages. Inferential statistics was used in quantitative data whereby Chi-square was conducted to establish the extent to which the study variables associated with each other. Qualitative data was presented through thematic analysis. Then there was mixing and interpretation of data. The investigation established that insecurity in the study county hampered syllabus coverage. It was recommended that the government put in place security measures to curb insecurity in the county and the local communities use peace talks. Further research was recommended on influence of insecurity in secondary schools and other institutions of higher learning. Article visualizations: