Influence of Teacher’s Professional Development on the Learner’s Competency Achievements in Public Primary Schools in Suna West Sub-County, Migori County

Abstract

Education is considered as the key to success in many countries. As a result, in Kenya most parents take pride in their children when they perform well in educational matters. This study aimed at investigating the influence of teachers’ professional development on learner’s competency achievement in public primary schools. This study was grounded on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory. It adopted a descriptive survey design. Questionnaires and interview schedules were used in data collection. The population of the study comprised of 54 headteachers, 432 teachers, 4 curriculum Support Officers (CSOs) and 1 Sub County Director of Education (SCDE). Krejcie and Morgan table was used to sample 24 headteachers and 190 teachers while purposive sampling was used to 4 Curriculum Support Officers and 1 SCDE. The study sample comprised of 24 head teachers from a target population of 54 public primary headteachers in the sub county, 190 teachers from a target population of 432 teachers in the sub county, the Sub County Director of Education and 2 CSOs. The face and content validity of the questionnaire was done with the assistance of supervisors are experts. Reliability was done by using test re- test methods which yielded alpha of 0.67. Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 21 was used to analyse quantitative data where descriptive such as frequencies and percentages were used to describe the data. While Pearson correlation was used to test hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Qualitative data from interview schedules and documents were analysed using thematic analysis and results were triangulated with quantitative data. The study found out that teachers professional development (r= 0.555, p=0.015) had a positive correlation with learners competency achievement. This implied that this variable had a significant influence on learner’s competency achievement. It was therefore recommended that teachers’ professional development programmes should be enhanced in schools.