Wastage in Schools: What Are The Emerging Internal Efficiency Concerns

The thrust of this study was to examine the causes of wastage in public day primary schools in Kyeni Division, Embu County, Kenya. The study was premised on the systems theory Systems theory first propounded by Bertalanffy (1950) which views an organization as a social system consisting of individuals who cooperate within a formal framework, drawing resources, people, finance from their environment and putting back into that environment. A descriptive survey research design was adopted. The target population was 26,250 pupils and 560 teachers in public day primary schools in the study locale. Stratified random sampling was used to select a sample of 521 subjects, comprising 10 head teachers, 10 school management committee (SMC) chairpersons, 400 students, 100 teachers and one Quality Assurance and Standards Officer. The main research instruments were questionnaires, interview schedules, focus group discussions guidelines and observation checklists. Data was processed and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS. The findings of the study were that schools lacked enough resources which affected the quality of teaching-learning resulting into low pupils ’ academic achievement. There was also increased dropout, repetition as well as low completion and transition rates. It was recommended that in order to increase internal efficiency of schools, the Government of Kenya, through the Ministry of Education should increase budgetar