Life Skills Education in Kenya: An Assessment of the Level of Preparedness of Teachers and School Managers in Implementing Life Skills Education in Trans- Nzoia District, Kenya

Abstract

Though Life Skills Education (LSE) has been made a compulsory component of basic education by the Ministry of Education in Kenya, effective teaching is hampered by several factors. The purpose of this study was to investigate the level of preparedness by teachers and school managers in implementing the Life Skills Education in secondary schools in Trans-Nzoia West District. To achieve this purpose, the study was guided by three fold objectives, namely) to determine teachers' training on LSE, ii) find out teachers' and students attitudes towards implementation of LSE in secondary schools, and iii) to establish the level of availability and adequacy of teaching/learning resources for implementing LSE in secondary schools. A descriptive survey design was used for the study. From the target population of 1800 students, 150 teachers and 37 principals in 37 public secondary schools in the district, stratified random sampling technique was adopted to draw 15 principals, 30 teachers and 180 students yielding 225 subjects. Questionnaires were used to collect data from teachers and students while interview schedules were used to collect data from the principals. Quantitative data from questionnaires were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) while qualitative data from interviews were analyzed thematically. The main findings were that: most teachers had not been trained on Life Skills Education hence indicating low level of preparedness by teachers. It was established that while teachers had negative attitude towards teaching of LSE, students portrayed a positive attitude towards learning of LSE. Regarding the level of availability and adequacy of teaching and learning resources, the study found that although the critical teaching/learning resources were available, they were grossly inadequate in most secondary schools studied. It was concluded that the level of preparedness by teachers and school managers was fairly low and this hampered effective implementation of the educational component in schools visited. It was recommended that teachers should be trained on Life Skills and appropriate instructional resources put in place to facilitate effective implementation of life skills not in the study locale, but also in other schools in the county with similar experiences. [345 words]