Influence of School Managers’ Training on Disaster Risk Management in Public Secondary Schools within Nairobi City County Kenya

Abstract

Disaster risks are very common occurrences within Kenyan secondary schools. Most disasters afflicting Nairobi City schools of the public category include fire outbreaks, student unrest, terror threats and strikes which have caused harm to humans and property in a number of incidences. Nevertheless, the concept of disaster risk management in secondary schools in Nairobi has so far not attracted much attention of researchers. The study objects were: to investigate school managers’ training mode on DRM, how the training had assisted the school managers in DRM, and the influence of school managers’ training on DRM. Emergent Norm theory and Risk Management theory were used to give guidance to the study. The study was a mixed methodology research employing concurrent triangulation design. The population comprised 282 individuals and sample size of 167 respondents determined according to Krejcie and Morgan sampling table. Data was collected through questionnaires and observation checklists for principals, HODs, BOM and interview guides for sub QASOs. Tools were pre-tested among 10% of the target sample, not part of part of the actual study. Instrument consistency was determined through Pearson product Moment correlation where a correlation coefficient of 0.75 was considered acceptable. Expert judgment by supervisors and peer reviewers was used to test the instruments for validity. Instrument dependability was established by employing overlapping procedures including telephone and face to face interviews during field work. Concurrent triangulation was employed for data credibility. Instrument reliability was calculated using Chronbach’s Alpha. Quantitative statistics was descriptively evaluated and shown in figures and tables. Significance of confidence at 95% level was tested using inferential statistics. Qualitative data was analysed thematically and results presented in tables. Conclusions are anticipated to benefit School managers, Teachers’ Service commission, Parents, Principals, the Ministry of Education, Nairobi County. All ethical issues pertaining to research were observed. The study findings are that: School managers were not trained on management of disaster risks. The school managers were trained on school safety through: Red Cross, In-service and Work-shop programs. 71.3% of school managers said that DRM was negatively influenced by the training on disaster risk management. The researcher concludes as: School managers in public schools in Nairobi City are not trained on disaster risk management. 65% have been trained on school safety. School managers are not prepared to manage disaster risk because they lack appropriate training. The recommendations are that: The Government of Kenya should develop a policy for disaster risk management, a Curriculum on management of risks caused by disaster and train school managers, teachers, students and communities on management of disaster risk.