Influence of Principals' Involvement in Staff Awareness Safety Strategies on Disaster Management in Public Secondary Schools in Nyeri County, Kenya

Abstract

<em>It is vital that Kenya is prepared to face disaster management in public secondary school. This will help to minimize the impact of disasters on schools. </em><em>The objective of the study included to</em><em>: </em><em>assess the influence of staff awareness of safety strategies on disaster management in public secondary schools in Nyeri County, Kenya. The study was anchored on the Maslow hierarchy of needs theory of 1943 and the Chaos Theory propounded by Doughlas Kiel of 2003. The researcher used the descriptive survey research design. The study targeted 208 principals, 1040 heads of departments in 208 secondary schools in Nyeri County.</em><em> 15% was used to select 21 principals and 21schools for interviewing and observation checklist respectively. </em><em>To validate research instruments, a pilot study was carried in 21 schools (10%) of the targeted 208 Schools. Reliability of the research instruments was done using the test-retest method. </em><em>A sample of 30% for heads of departments and 10% for principals was considered effective to the study. A stratified sampling method and a mixed-method approach were used. Qualitative data was collected from the principals using interview schedule while Quantitative data were collected using questionnaires from heads of departments and the checklist was used.</em> <em>The study established that staff awareness of safety was significant. </em><em>The findings showed a significant association between principals' staff awareness and disaster management </em><em>(p&lt;.05)</em><em>. </em><em>The study recommended that </em><em>sensitization on disaster management ought to be done more frequently to ensure teachers are well aware of the importance of preventing disasters in order to promote learning and save lives<strong>.</strong></em>