Prefects’ Academic Work Performance before and after Appointment as Prefects in Public Secondary Schools in Nakuru Sub-County, Kenya

Abstract

Prefects are student leaders elected or appointed and assigned administrative duties in schools. Besides their school responsibilities, prefects are expected to perform their academic work well and attain good grades in class tests and national examinations like other students. According to reports in Nakuru District Education Office, achievement in examinations of public secondary school students decline when they take up prefects’ responsibilities. Perhaps this may be due to the influence of school responsibilities on their academic work. This study sought to investigate the influence of school responsibilities on prefects’ academic work performance in public secondary schools in Nakuru Sub-County. The study used descriptive survey research design. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 15 secondary schools and 15 deputy headteachers that participated in the study. A sample of 150 school prefects was selected using simple random sampling technique. Two instruments; the Deputy Headteachers’ interview guide (DHTIG) and Prefects’ questionnaires (PQ) were used to collect data. The two data collection tools were checked for content and face validity by a team of four experts from the Department of Curriculum, Instruction and Educational Management, Egerton University. DHTIG and PQ were piloted for reliability, their reliability coefficients were 0.70 and 0.73 respectively. The reliability was calculated using the Cronbach’s Alpha. Data were analyzed with the aid of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 17.2. Descriptive statistics and t-test were used to analyze data. The results showed that there was no significant difference in mean scores of students’ academic work performance before and after appointment as a prefect. The study recommended that; there is need for the school administration and teachers to train prefects (after their appointment) on leadership and study skills; and there is need for the teachers to provide remedial teaching and academic counseling to prefects so that they can attain good grades in national examinations for entry to higher education.