The role of the head teacher in ensuring public retention through school feeding programme: A case study of a government aided primary school in Uganda

Mugabi Milton

Date of Award

2014

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Master of Education (MEd)

First Supervisor/Advisor

Dr. Mary Oluga

Second Supervisor/Advisor

Peter Kajoro

Department

Institute for Educational Development, East Africa

Abstract

School feeding programme has been used as an intervention by poor countries to relieve hunger among school going age children and as an instrument for achieving millennium development goals. It has been claimed that SFPs increase school enrolment, class participation and retention of pupils in primary schools targeting low social economic families and schools that face poor attendance and enrolment of pupils. Thus the purpose of this study was to investigate roles of the head teacher in ensuring pupils retention through SFP in a rural government aided primary school in Kabale district, South Western Uganda. The study was conducted using the descriptive qualitative case study approach. School management Committee representative, chairperson PTA, head teacher, Deputy Head teacher, parents, teachers and school pupils constituted the population for the study. The participants were selected using purposive sampling. Data was collected using interview guides, focus group discussion guides, document analysis frame work and observation schedule and was analysed using narrative text and verbatim quotations. It was found out that the head teacher exercised his management roles to mobilize resources to supplement the donation from “Beans means Brains” initiative courtesy of David Renton and thus the SFP showed high feasibility of addressing the challenges faced in retaining the pupils experienced by the school before. Findings confirm that the head teacher used transformational leadership blended with instructional. The researcher recommends that government and all stakeholders in education fraternity should support SFP because of its superiority in ensuring retention of pupils in school. In conclusion, the researcher suggests that a similar study be done in an urban area and other parts of the country on roles of the head teacher in ensuring retention of pupils through related intervention programmes so as to generalize the findings.

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