INFLUENCE OF SCHOOL LEADERSHIP PRACTICES ON GIRLS COMPLETION RATE IN PUBLIC PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN KIMILILI SUB COUNTY, KENYA

This paper looks at the influence of school leadership practices on girls’ completion rate in public primary schools in Kimilili Sub County, Kenya. The study was conducted in light of increased number of girls dropping out of school before finishing off class eight. Furthermore, statistics shows majority of girls have absenteeism and truancy behaviour which result to incidents of repetition and drop outs before finishing grade eight. Therefore, the study collected data from selected public primary schools teachers in Kimilili sub county public primary schools. The data for this study was collected through use of questionnaire distributed to a sample of 65 teachers. The study found out that indeed completion rate of girls has been an issue facing majority of public primary schools in Kimilili. Various factors stretching from home, individual, environmental and school factors were causes of low girls’ completion rate in schools in Kimilili Sub County. With regard to school leadership, all respondents agreed that school leadership practices, behaviours and styles significantly influenced girls completion rate among girls in the schools studied to a moderate level. This meant that leadership practices used by school administration that address the plight of girls; supervising guidance and counselling services implementation, educating parents on the importance of girl child education, supervising girls pupils school attendance patterns, provision of school feeding programmes and sanitary resources would to promote high completion rate among girls in schools. In recommendations, the study suggests that school leadership need to be pro-active in addressing the needs of the girl child and that participative and transformation leadership practices needs to embrace as a stop gap measure of addressing girls completion rate in schools. Article visualizations