Effect of Principals’ Financial Management Practices on Academic Achievement in Public Secondary Schools In Bungoma East Sub-County, Kenya

Abstract

Finance is a key resource that determines performance of any organization. Principals are managers of this resource in secondary schools. The study investigated the relationship between principals’ financial management practices and students’ academic achievement in public secondary schools in Bungoma East Sub-County. Embedded mixed method research design was adopted for the study. The target population was all principals, deputy principals and heads of department in public secondary schools in the Sub-County. Stratified random sampling was used to select the study sample. In total, 180 respondents, comprising of 33 principals, 33 deputy principals and 114 heads of department, were picked from 33 sampled schools. Data was collected using questionnaire, interview schedule and document analysis guide. A pilot study was carried out in three schools from the neighbouring Sub-County before the main study to establish validity and reliability of the research tools. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used in data analysis. Descriptive statistics involved the use of frequencies, percentages and means while inferential statistics involved the use of Spearman’s Rank order correlation. The study established a strong positive relationship between principals’ financial management practices and academic achievement in public secondary schools. Therefore, principals who had high scores on financial management practices recorded high academic mean scores in their schools. Financial managerial practices play a pivotal role in infrastructural and academic development of an educational institution. It was thus recommended that school principals should ensure that school financial resources were properly managed to ensure there was proper development of schools’ infrastructures hence improvement of academic performance.