WORKING WITH SCHOOL BOARDS, Kangundo                       
Case study-School governance
Poor performance in national examinations for primary and secondary schools in Kangundo district
Background
In line with the millennium development goals and Kenya Vision 2030, PEN has been working to improve the quality of education in selected districts as it has been identified as a condition for sustained development. Kangundo district is one of the poor performers in the national examinations in both primary and secondary school levels. Information from a baseline survey undertaken by PEN in Kalama Division, Machakos in the year 2004 indicates that primary school education is one of the priority areas in the larger Machakos district. Despite high levels of attainment in some schools within the larger district, education standards are extremely low especially in Kangundo. Poor school governance/management, poor performance in national examinations and high drop-out rates were cited as the major contributing factors to low academic standards in the district.PEN believes the status of school governance and management of education affairs has a direct effect on the quality of education.

In the year 2007, Kangundo district primary school’s mean grade was below 3.0 and was rated number 28 out of 28 in the province. In 2008 the district improved and was rated number 14 out of 28. In the year 2009 the district mean improved with 5 points despite the fact that the district dropped number 19. This scenario may be encouraging but the districts’ mean remain below average.  One of the reasons for this poor performance has been cited as weak management and governance structures not optimally equipped to address education affairs.
 
Group work activities for school committees
Together with Ministry of Education officials in the district, PEN has focused in strengthening governance and management structures among selected poorly performing schools. Capacity enhancement programs for the school management committees and board of governors has been conducted in these schools since 2007. Training and mentoring programs were also done on the national examination guidelines. To capture the real picture on the ground an examinations performance for the district was done contrasting it with well performing districts and schools in the country. During these workshops and meeting excelling schools from the district were also invited to share their success stories.
“Our school, Ngomani primary benefitted from the two training supported by PEN done in March and September 2007 whereby our mean score improved with 114 marks moving from 194 to 308 marks. In the year 2009 we participated majorly to share our experience on how we applied the lessons from the two training. We have learned to work as a team and to value the contribution of the parents, teachers, students and other stakeholders within and outside the district for our success.”                            Ms Zipporah the head teacher Ngomani primary.

Conclusion
Carrying out development activities within Kangundo district has not been easy due to poor governance and social structures. Some key issues highlighted by community members from the area were poor attitude towards development and towards education. This initiative has proved to transform institutions from poor results to better performance and it has shown the need to continue supporting more districts faced with the same challenges in order to save the future generation through raising their academic standards