Abstract:
The Ministry of Education supports and provides head teachers of primary schools to
undertake in-service training for implementation of free primary education (FPE). This
study sought to establish the influence of in-service training of head teachers on their
implementation of FPE in public primary schools in Kiambu County, Kenya. The
objectives of this study were to: examine how training on schools strategic planning
influence the implementation of FPE; establish how head teachers’ training on resource
management influences the implementation of FPE; determine how project
management training in schools influencesthe implementation of FPE and to determine
how head teachers’ training on curriculum management influences the implementation
of FPE. Theoretical foundation of the study was the Social Demand Approach to
Education which is a model of educational planning aiming at aligning the educational
investments according to the social demand for education but including economic use
of the available resources. The study used an ex-post facto research design. A sample
size of 50 head teachers was selected using simple random sampling from a population
of 500 head teachers working in public primary schools in Kiambu County. The study
used semi-structured questionnaires to collect primary data from the head teachers
while secondary data was collected from official records. The collected data was
categorized into themes then analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences
(SPSS) and results presented in form of frequencies and percentages. The study is
significant to the government since it provides evidence that improving the skills of
head teachers may result in successful implementation of FPE in public primary
schools. The study findings show that only in-service training of head teachers in
curriculum management was chosen by a large number of respondents (51%) as having
a significant influence on implementation of free primary education. It was found that
in-service training of head teachers has slightly lower influence on implementation of
free primary education as shown by the number of respondents; Strategic planning
(28%), Resource management (30%) and Project management (26%). This indicated a
low influence of in-service training on implementation of FPE policy. The study
established that lack of strategic planning, resource management and project
management skills among Head teachers affected implementation of FPE. The study
recommends that Government should avail sufficient resources for more frequent in service training courses based on current education management issues
