Preparedness of Schools Management Boards in Curriculum Implementation in Public Primary Schools in Bungoma County, Kenya

This paper investigates Curriculum Implementation in Public Primary Schools by the Management Boards in Tongeren Sub-County, Bungoma County, Kenya. The study objective was to establish the preparedness of the school management boards in curriculum implementation. The sample size for the study was 136 where Board members were 92 while teaching staff were 44. The study adopted both qualitative and quantitative research designs. Data was collected through questionnaires and interview schedules. The questionnaire was used on the education officers, the headteachers, and teachers, while the interview schedules were used on the School Management Boards. Descriptive and inferential analysis techniques were used to analyze the collected data. Cronbach Alpha’s measure of internal consistency yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.756 on the questionnaire. Qualitative data collected were analyzed thematically. Quantitative data gathered from the field survey was analyzed using regression on SPSS version 25. The study noted that 96.8% of the school management boards were not initially trained in curriculum implementation by Kenya Education Management Institute (KEMI). Findings further indicate that the correlation coefficient (R-value) for the model was 0.151, indicating a low positive relationship between the variables. The Coefficient of determination (R2) was 23%, implying that the studied variables accounted for 23% variability in the curriculum implementation in public primary schools at a 95% confidence interval. This was an indication that members of the school management boards were unlikely to oversee proper curriculum implementation for lack of management skills. Sensitization and organization of regular in-service courses for school management boards on matters of curriculum implementation are recommended.


INTRODUCTION
The School Management Boards (SMBs) in Kenya were established based on the guidelines of the Basic Education Act (No. 14 of 2013 section 53-63). This is the body mandated by the Education Act to manage primary and secondary schools. The County Education Board guided the body and approved the members appointed while the Secretary to the board is the Head Teacher or Principal (Herman et al., 2008). Dervarics and O'Brien (2019) outlined eighty characteristics of effective School Boards, among others; commitment to a vision of high expectations for the school, strong shared beliefs and values about the school, accountability driven, and a collaborative relationship with the school and the community. The school boards should have datasavvy, align and sustain resources to meet school goals and have strong collaboration and mutual trust. Lastly, the school boards should take part in team development and training to build shared values.
School management is the second most important factor that influences students' achievement after teaching quality. Ford (2013) argues that School Boards are responsible for raising school standards. They are responsible for monitoring the overall working of the school which include preparation and recommendation of school development plans and monitoring grants (Palusci & Covington, 2014).
In many jurisdictions, school boards are responsible for promoting the interests of the schools and ensuring development, quality education and pupils' discipline. They provide for the welfare and rights of pupils. The boards play a supervisory role and in the maintenance of school premises. The boards are in charge of all financial and legal participatory monitoring operations of the school. The Schools Act No. 84 of 1996 gave guidelines for the school governing bodies (SGBs) and the school heads on their roles and responsibilities in managing the school funds.  observed that a major challenge facing schools is that some members of SGBs and heads had little knowledge of the Schools Act and/or interpreted it wrongly, which resulted in many schools experiencing financial mismanagement.
Members of the Schools Management Boards require skills in keeping Books of Accounts. This was very necessary for accountability and transparency (Khama, 2014). Without this skill, many projects in learning institutions would remain incomplete for a long and stakeholders could not understand why (Orodho, 2013;Owino & Abagi, 2000). The government was to avail books of accounts before the introduction of Free Primary Education. Seminars and workshops were to be organized before handing over the same rather than giving huge amounts of money to Schools Management Boards including the headteachers who had little or no skill of keeping these books.
The Cabinet Secretary should by regulations, according to the Basic Education Act 2013 No. 14 of 2013, prescribe the qualifications for persons who might be appointed to or co-opted into the Board of Management in any basic education institution under this Act. The nominating and appointing authority of a board of management should observe and respect: the ethnic and regional diversity of the people of Kenya, the impartiality and gender equity, appointment and term of chairperson and members, and promotion of special needs education (Owino, & Abagi, 2000).
However,  study on the BOM members' training, skills and competence and performance of their responsibilities noted discrepancies in their appointments. The findings indicated that, in some of the school boards, there is a blatant breach of guidelines given by the Ministry. Some BOM members had primary school education as their highest academic qualification against the policy. They observed that the training of the BOM members was not given priority as required by the policy. The study recommends that there is a need to train BOM members on policy interpretation, strategy formulation and financial management for them to be able to manage schools.
Lack of proper curriculum implementation in schools has had adverse effects on school performance in the National Exams in the Sub-County. The Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) results for Tongaren Sub-County had been declining since 2015 and were below the County's average mark of 280 (Table 1). The expected mean mark was 350 marks for one to secure a chance in National schools or 300 marks for County and extra-County schools. The performance shown above was considered a failure because the graduates of this mark could not compete for chances in National or County schools. According to Too, Kimutai and Kosgei (2019) noted that it was the responsibility of headteachers to supervise curriculum implementation in schools, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Responsibility of headteachers to supervise on curriculum implementation
According to Too, Kimutai and Kosgei (2019), school heads and the School Management Boards had failed in their supervisory and monitoring roles in curriculum implementation in schools. They observed that some headteachers had been demoted and others transferred over examination failure between 2015-2019.
The Kenya Education Management Institute (KEMI) was introduced by the Ministry of Education to train Educational Managers in their managerial skills (Khama, 2014). These educational managers included the Quality Assurance Standards Officers, headteachers and their deputy, senior teachers, and School Management Board members. However, the School Boards' preparedness on quality management capacities and training in providing leadership and good governance in the implementation of the curriculum were not clear.
Despite the importance of having Boards of Management in schools, most of them don't perform their duties and responsibilities as stipulated by the Ministry of Education in curriculum implementation. In Bungoma North Sub -County, the situation is worse to the extent that performance in National Exams is worrying due to poor curriculum implementation. This study, therefore, set out to assess the School Management Boards in curriculum implementation in public primary schools in Bungoma North Sub-County, Kenya. The study objective was to assess the preparedness of the Schools Management Boards in curriculum implementation in 8 key areas; school funds, financial fraud, provision of learning and teaching materials, adequacy in financial management, knowledge on books of accounts, training by KEMI, and commitment and competency by the board.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Education plays a pivoting role in the development of human civilization. It caters to the needs of society and prepares it for a better future. Ben & Murundu (2019) carried out a study on indicators and school governance principles. The study shows that there is no single school governance model that is appropriate for all schools, countries, and economic environments. The study results suggest that the board's clear function, sustainable policy, and board charter have significant positive driving forces on school performance. Tshiunza et al. (2017)  The sub-county has both private and public primary schools. The study focused on public primary schools whose performance was wanted (Tongaren Sub-County, 2020). This study adopted a mixed-method research design involving both questionnaire and interview schedule. The questionnaire was used on the education officers, the headteachers, and teachers, while the interview schedules were used on the School Management Boards. According to Orodho and Kombo (2002), this design is used when collecting information about people's attitudes, opinions, habits, or any educational or social issues. The study assessed the preparedness of Schools Management Boards concerning curriculum implementation, recording their findings, analyzing and interpreting them. This type of design was applied to this study because the information was collected from a few schools and the results generalized overall public primary schools in the country.
Hypothesis testing to determine the significant relationships between the variables used in the study was done through correlation analysis at a 95% level of significance. This statistical technique was appropriate for the study because it includes analyzing several variables when the focus is on the relationship between a dependent variable and one or more independent variables (Pickard, 2013).

DATA ANALYSIS, DISCUSSION, AND PRESENTATION OF FINDINGS
Data on this aspect are presented in Table 2.   Table 2 shows the preparedness of school management boards in the implementation of the school curriculum. The study results indicated that 75% of Schools had SMBS as overall supervisors of public schools which were funded by the Ministry of Education, constituency development fund, and non-governmental organizations. This raised the question of how adequately the members of SMBs were prepared in carrying out their supervisory role of the funds channeled to schools. Furthermore, the SMBs' financial management skills were brought to question on whether the SMB members had adequate knowledge on the use of the channeled funds to implement the primary school curriculum.
The study results indicate that 60.3% of learning and teaching materials were not provided by the Ministry in public primary schools with the involvement of SMBs (see Table 2). This was attributed to the fact that the primary school enrolment was far much beyond the government projection and provision of teaching and learning material through various vote heads stipulated in the free primary education was not adequate. This is contrary to the government's initiative of teaching/learning materials in the 1980s through the Kenya Equipment Scheme where primary schools were adequately provided with teaching/learning materials such as wall charts, maps, models, textbooks, exercise books, rules, geometrical sets and art, and craft equipment. The government provision of teaching/learning materials was limited to exercise books and course books. The textbook procurement by the government fund was conditioned by the predetermined list available in the Orange Book updated every year. The challenges were that some useful books were not captured in the Orange Books and SMB members were not allowed to authorize the purchase of such books, thus affecting the implementation of the curriculum.
The study results show that 83.8% indicated massive fraud in public primary schools (see Table  2). This implied that the school management boards were not keen on the correct expenditure of school funds leading to improper implementation of the school curriculum since funds were not spent as stipulated in putting up infrastructure and procuring materials to boast smooth learning. This massive fraud was alluded to tendering and procurement issues, particularly when it came to awarding of CDF bursaries to students and government funding projects by the boards. The boards had conflicting interests, which led to a lack of impartiality and fairness in the entire process. Procurement of textbooks and exercise books also provided a loophole as a source of fraud and corruption whereby members expected kickbacks from those awarded tenders to supply the goods. This study confirms Kurniawan et al. (2020) that noted massive fraud resulting from inadequate s monitoring mechanisms by the School Management Boards The preparation of members of the SMBs in handling finances is a priority in ensuring that funds meant for curriculum implementation through the provision of teaching, learning, and evaluation materials are effectively done. Therefore, the study sought to establish whether all school management board members had adequate skills to handle huge amounts of money. The study found out that the majority (67.6%) of SMBs had little or no skills in handling huge amounts of money (see Table 2). Lack of adequate skills in handling finances may provide a loophole for misappropriation of funds and affect curriculum implementation in schools. Some members of SMBs may take the ignorance of other members regarding financial management as an advantage of embezzling funds especially by the heads of the institutions. The schools, whose board members were knowledgeable in financial matters, had effective and efficient curriculum implementation. This study result confirms the study by Abagi and Olweya (1999) and Ndian'gui (2013) who observed that lack of financial management skills by the school boards provided loopholes for embezzlement of school funds.
The study results indicated that 91.2% of school boards did not know financial matters while only 8.8% of the board members knew books of accounts (see Table 2). This was an indication that members of school management boards lacked adequate financial skills and this was likely to hamper the smooth implementation of the school curriculum since procurement of teaching/learning materials was not effectively done. The study results confirm the study by Hess (2010) that good governance and financial accountability in a school are dictated by the quality of its managers.
On training and induction of school management boards, the study indicated that 96.8% had not been trained by KEMI (see Table 2). This was an indication that members of the schools' management boards were unlikely to oversee proper curriculum implementation for lack of management skills. Seminars and workshops are important in carrying out duties by school management boards. The study indicates that all school boards had not attended seminars and workshops. The lack of seminars and workshops had negatively impacted the curriculum implementation in public primary schools in the region. The study results confirm the study by Osukuku and Zadock Murundu (2019), who had noted that school management boards could not monitor and evaluate Constituency Development Funded (CDF) projects in public secondary schools in Teso South Sub-County.
The study also sought to establish whether all School Management Board members are committed and competent in managing curriculum in public primary schools. It was found out that 80.9% of the School Management Board members were not committed and competent in managing curriculum in public primary schools (see Table 2). The lack of commitment by the school boards had negatively impacted curriculum implementation in public primary schools. The study results confirm the study by  who noted discrepancies in the appointments of BOM members, lack of training, and capacity building and competence are affected the performance of their responsibilities.

Inferential Results and Hypothesis Testing
HO1: There is a statistically significant relationship between BOM preparedness and curriculum implementation in public primary schools.
This section reports the results of the hypothesis testing indicating the relationships between curriculum implementation and various variables (school funds, learning/teaching materials, financial fraud, adequacy of financial management, knowledge on books of account, training by KEMI, seminars, and workshops, and commitment and competency of BOM members) in the study objective and the hypothesis based on the study objective (Table 3). An alpha value of α < 0.05 was used in the regression statistical inferential tests. Significance test qualification was nearness to 0.000 for regression test. The value of R 2 adj was used. Significance test qualification was based on a percentage of R 2 adj and within 0.3 to 0.7 ranges for Beta weight value (Nabiswa, 2018).  Table 3 indicate that the regression coefficient (R-value) for the model was 0.151. Rvalue is used to show the strength and direction of the relationship between the variables. In this case, the R-value of .151 indicates a low positive relationship between Curriculum Implementation and variables of school management boards (Nabiswa, 2018). The Coefficient of determination (R 2 ) was found to be 0.23 (23%). This implies that the 8 variables studied which were; school funds, learning/teaching materials, financial fraud, adequacy of financial management, knowledge on books of account, training by KEMI, seminars and workshops and commitment and competency, accounted for 23% variability in the curriculum implementation at 95% confidence interval.   Table 4). This is a moderate relationship as the beta weight is within the decision criterion of the coefficient range 0.3 to 0.7. This value (β1 = 0.323) implies that the variance in school funds significantly accounted for the preparedness in curriculum implementation.

Findings in
It was also noted that a unit increase in learning/teaching materials would result in a .378 or 37.8% increase in curriculum implementation; thus, showing a moderate relationship. This value (β1 = 0.378) implies that the variance in learning/teaching materials significantly accounted for the curriculum implementation (see Table 4).
Taking all factors into account, a unit increase in financial fraud would result in a -0.395 or 39.5% reduction in preparedness in curriculum implementation (see Table 4). This is a moderate relationship as the beta weight is within the decision criterion of the coefficient range -+0.3 to -+0.7. This value (β1 = -0.395) implies that the variance in learning/teaching materials significantly accounted for the Curriculum implementation.
A unit increase in the adequacy of financial management would result in a .354 or 35.4 % increase in curriculum implementation (see Table  4). This value (β1 = 0.354) implies that the variance in learning/teaching materials significantly accounted for the Curriculum implementation. In addition, a unit increase in knowledge on books of account would result in a .251 or 25.1% increase in curriculum implementation. This value (β1 = 0.251) implies that the variance in learning/teaching materials significantly accounted for the Curriculum implementation.
The regression equation above established that taking all factors into account the training by KEMI at zero curriculum implementation was 2.786. However, a unit increase in training by KEMI would result in a .472 or 47.2% increase in curriculum implementation (see Table 4). This value (β1 = 0.472) implies that the variance in learning/teaching materials significantly accounted for the Curriculum implementation. Besides, a unit increase in seminars and workshops would result in a .396 or 39.6% increase in curriculum implementation. This value (β1 = 0.395) implies that the variance in learning/teaching materials significantly accounted for the Curriculum implementation. Lastly, a unit increase in commitment and competency would result in a .458 or 45.8% increase in curriculum implementation. This value (β1 = 0.458) implies that the variance in learning/teaching materials significantly accounted for the curriculum implementation.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Public primary schools had put in place school management boards as stipulated by the Ministry of Education requirement. However, the preparedness of these boards in implementing school curriculum was still a subject of investigation. Thus, in-service courses on curriculum implementation should be organized on a regular basis to empower teachers and board members to effectively implement the curriculum.
Although school management boards have tried to ensure that curriculum implementation is done accordingly, there is still much to be desired. This includes their training in matters of curriculum implementation to the provision of teachinglearning resources. School Management Board members can effectively deliver better in their duties if they have been inducted or trained in what to do. However, on job learning leads to errors that stand in the way of curriculum implementation.
Decision making should be involved by all stakeholders. There should be collective decision making especially with regard to the facilitation of curriculum implementation. The motivation of learners and teachers was not satisfactory on the part of school management boards. This hindered implementation of the curriculum.