Challenges affecting learning in public secondary schools in Maliku Zone, Katulani sub- county in Kitui county.

Performance by students has persistently been poor. This study sought to investigate the factors contributing to the poor performance and to establish the strategies adopted to improve performance in Secondary Schools in Maliku zone, Katulani sub-county Kitui County in Kenya. The study was directed to determine the school based factors that affect students' performance in secondary schools in Maliku zone that affect them and their personal factors that affect performance and establish the strategies that can be adopted to improve performance .The study also sought to provide answers to the questions: Which factors cause poor performance in KCSE mathematics examination? What is the effect of the learner’s attitude on their performance? What are the effects of teacher’s qualification and instructional approaches on the outcome of mathematics result in the national examination? And what effect does the availability of resources have on the final outcome of the national examination in Maliku zone. This study adopted the cross-sectional research design. The study was conducted in Katulani sub-county. A sample of 15% of the population was taken for this study. The study focused on five public secondary Schools in which a total of 100 students were involved. The target group included a sample of 100 teachers, and 100 parents. The study used simple random sampling technique to select the study respondents particularly the teachers and -parents. Simple lottery was used to identify the respondents. Piloting was done using test-retest; the instruments were pre-tested in two schools in Maliku zone. Data collection was managed and analyzed by use of clean code and SPSS (Statistical package for Social Sciences) version 17.0 where it was be suitable. Data was entered in a computer, cleaned and coded and then it will was analyzed by SPSS Version 21.0 where-by the data was presented inform of graphs, tables and pie-charts where necessary