Human resource development and staff job performance in selected secondary schools in Kamwenge district

Abstract

This study set out to investigate the effect of human resource development and staff performance in selected secondary schools in Kamwenge district. This was in response to a problem in which Kamwenge district has a number of human resource development programmes for teachers which seem not to correspond with the performance of teachers. The study was guided by the following objectives: i. to examine the current human resource development methods being used to improve staff performance in Kamwenge district; ii. Identify the challenges to effective implementation of human resource development. This research used a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods with much emphasis on the qualitative approach. It was based on the population of teachers and head teachers of selected schools in Kamwenge district. Questionnaires and interview guides were mainly used for collecting data from a sample of 60 respondents. The generated data was mainly analyzed by measures of central tendency from questionnaires and creating trends from the interviews. The study findings concluded that government aided secondary schools develop teachers using on job training; off job training; job rotation and transfers; orientation; and conferences; the challenges of HRD included: getting financial resources, taking care of needs for all stake holders, finding time on crowded time table and finding resourceful persons. The solutions suggested for the challenges were: making in-house HRD strategies, use of internal resource persons, use of part of time tabled activities like staff meetings and co-curricular activities, consulting staff on areas for HRD, identifying volunteer resource persons at the place of work, and use of organizational community service opportunities. The study concluded that there are a variety of on job and off job trainings for human resource development in Kamwenge district like orientations, conferences and others; financial resource remains a constraint to effecting the HRD needs of schools in Kamwenge district; taking care of the multiple needs of the stake holders for HRD needs remains a challenge to many organizations including schools in Kamwenge district; create time for HRD activities in the school remains a challenge; and finding resourceful people to carry out HRD remains a challenge to schools in Kamwenge district. The study recommended that refresher courses be given to head teachers to improve upon their management skill so as to effectively and appropriately tackle staffs’ diverse needs; head teachers and other school stake holders in Kamwenge district should ensure that the challenges to effecting HRD activities are averted to have a full gain of its advantages; head teachers should also make sure that time is allocated on the school time table to give a chance for HRD activities; and School administrators should take advantage of the external resource persons and the community service facility of different organizations to identify volunteer resourceful persons to participate in the HRD activities to improve staff job performance Kamwenge District