| dc.description.abstract | This research was a cross sectional survey on the influence of selected educational resources on performance of government aided primary schools in Apac district.
In an attempt to explain the disparities in primary school performance, the researcher studied the influence of school plant, instructional resources and human resources on school performance. The researcher focused on the adequacy of those resources and in case of the latter, analyzed its influence in terms of qualification, experience and pupil – teacher ratio.
The research was conducted in four counties, namely: Maruzi, Oyam, Kwania and Kole in Apac district as a case study. The study covered twenty eight government aided primary schools which were randomly sampled. The researcher randomly sampled one hundred and forty teachers, fifty six pupils and twenty eight head teachers in the twenty eight schools to use for her study.
The study used cross sectional survey design. The data was collected using closed ended and a limited number of open ended questionnaires. An interview was conducted to get data from the head teachers and the researcher also did on the spot observation of the adequacy of resources under this study in the respective schools. The results were presented in the case of qualitative data while quantitative data was analyzed using the chi-square statistical method and discussed.
The results of the study indicated that the adequacy of school fixtures were statistically significant in influencing school performance positively such that the schools which had those resources performed better than schools that scarcely had them. The study tested the influence of other school plants such as adequacy of classrooms and libraries; but they were found to be statistically insignificant in influencing positively school performance in the government aided primary in Apac district. Hypotheses two established the significant influence of instructional resources and teachers’ competency in using instructional resources and drew a relationship between instructional resources and school performance. The findings were not very significant and thus the null hypothesis was retained. Hypothesis three tested the teachers’ qualification, experience and pupil – teacher ratio in influencing school performance. The majority of teachers were found to be insufficiently qualified though the long period of their teaching made them to gain teaching skills. The pupil-teacher ratio was found be too large to enable most schools perform well. However, in cases of teachers’ qualifications, the statistical analysis revealed no significance in influencing school performance. In cases of experience and class size, the respondents confirmed that they influence school performance positively when favourable and negatively where they were not.
In conclusion, most components of school plant, were found to be inadequately provided in most schools except fixtures that were relatively available. Therefore, schools that had adequate furniture were ably aided and performed better than primary schools that did not have them.
Furthermore, it was concluded that some instructional resources were lacking which made it more difficult to instruct pupils effectively. The test statistic found instructional resources not to be significantly influencing school performance. Therefore, it was concluded that instructional resources had no significant influence on performance of schools in this study.
The human resources input were inadequately provided with majority of teachers insufficiently qualified though had the experience and competency. The class size was too large for effective teaching. Therefore, the human resource input was inadequate to generate high school performance in some schools.
The researcher thus recommended that the school planners, mappers and educational policy makers would need to establish the educational resource inputs from what existed in a school to fill up the educational resource gaps in those schools in the rural areas to bring performance to equal levels. | en_US |
