Influence of School Factors on Teacher Stress in Public Secondary School in Kenya: A Case Study of Kakamega North Sub-county

The teaching profession is one of the professions that are considered stressful. This fact has been revealed by many studies worldwide. It is asserted that school factors influence teacher stress more than any other factors. However, some studies have contradicted these assertions indicating that schools are haven of peace and therefore do not generate teacher stress. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to establish the influence of school factors on teacher stress using Kakamega North Sub County as the site of the study. A conceptual framework based on Bray, Camlin, Fairbank, Dunteman and Wheeless (2001) concept that stress is influenced by work factors which in turn influences performance of workers was adopted to guide the study. The study established that school factors influenced teacher stress. The influence was however weak with a Pearson correlation coefficient of .238 and was significant. School factors accounted for 4.6% of variation in teacher stress as was signified by Adjusted R square .46. School factors were also found to be significant predictors of teacher stress. (F (6, 92) = 2.028, P < .05). As specifically the school factors that influenced teacher stress were; location of the school, evaluation policy on students, gender parity of students, bench marking policy, Board of Management and school ethos, customs and traditions. The factors that had little influence on teacher stress included; class size of below 45 students, class size of 45 and above students, entry behaviour of below 250 marks being the average Kenya Certificate of Secondary education examinations, delegation policy, communication policy, gender parity of teachers, teacher students ratio, school routine, teacher –students relationship, office space, sanitation and students dress code. The study concluded that school factors influenced teachers stress in Kakamega North sub-county. The study recommended that stress audits need to be conducted in schools with a view to improving stress levels among teachers to the benefit of students academic performance. The findings of this study are significant to educationists in identifying strategies to deal with stress levels among secondary school teachers in enhancement of students’ academic performance in the Sub County.