Influence of Principals’ Leadership Skills on Students’ Academic Performance in Public Secondary Schools in Kenya: A Case Study of Migori County

Students’ academic performance is measured by use of national examinations and these examinations are recognized as an important backbone of the education system. Examination outcome is used as the major basis for deciding a student’s ability and is used as a means for acquiring employment and academic advancement. The importance of education to both national and individual development is indisputable. Many students do not excel in national examinations in many countries around the world, Kenya included. The underperformance has raised alarm and efforts have been made to identify the factors that lead to this but the problem still persists. The Objective of the study was to determine the influence of principal’s leadership skills on students’ academic performance in Kenya. It was established that principals’ leadership skills highly influence students’ academic performance with overall mean rating of mean = 4.07, SD =0.55. The principals’ leadership skills accounted for 23.0% of the variation of the students’ academic performance in secondary schools as signified by the adjusted R square. 230. This implies that 77% of the variation in students’ academic performance was due to other factors which were not subject of this study. Since the influence was significant (P<.05) it means that students academic performance can be predicted by principals leadership skills. This data is significant to stakeholders in education and particularly the Directorate of Quality Assurance and principals of secondary schools.