Project Management Practices and Implementation of Construction Projects in Public Secondary Schools in Nairobi City County, Kenya
Authors: Osckin Wenceslas Gankoue Nke; Tumuti Joshua Wachira
Year: 2023

: The implementation of construction projects heavily relies on the application of project management practices. Nonetheless, the existence of excessively delayed and over-budget projects serves as significant indications of insufficient project application. Management practices, alongside other challenges, are prevalent throughout the implementation phase of school construction projects. The initial understanding of the problem revealed that there was not enough emphasis on the application of proper project management practices. This consequently affected the implementation of school construction projects such as dormitories, libraries, halls, offices, classrooms, and laboratories in public secondary schools in Nairobi, Kenya. This research sought to examine the influence of project management practices on the implementation of construction projects in the public secondary schools within Nairobi City County, Kenya. In particular, the extent to which project planning, risk management, stakeholder involvement, and monitoring and evaluation practices influence the delivery of construction projects. The study was grounded in project theory as the core theory for the study. The study adopted a descriptive research design. A census technique was used to consider the total population of 49 overrun construction projects in public secondary schools in Nairobi City County. The researcher used structured questions to collect data from 196 respondents including school principals, BOMs chairpersons, PTAs chairpersons, and teachers. The questionnaires were delivered to the respondents and picked later after they were filled. diagnostic test and pilot test were carried out to determine the research validity. Whereas the Diagnostic Test was subjected to the test of normality, multi-collinearity, and homoscedasticity through the use of the Shapiro-Wilk test, Variance Inflation Factor, and Levene's test; Pilot Testing on the other hand, was done using the test-retest reliability techniques on a small group of 10 respondents from two overrun construction projects executed in public secondary schools located in Kiambu County. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used in obtaining the correlation coefficient of the test scores and the threshold values from 0.59 and above were considered acceptable for the reliability. SPSS version 23.0 and Excel software were utilized in entering data. Quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Multiple linear regression was also utilized for modeling. The results showed that project planning, risk management, stakeholder involvement, and monitoring and evaluation practices had a significant impact on the successful delivery of school construction projects. The study concluded that effective implementation of school construction projects is mainly facilitated by the application of planning, risk management, stakeholder involvement, and monitoring and evaluation practices. It is recommended that project planning should be undertaken first to identify and ensure the availability of resources and to provide a roadmap for successful project implementation within time and budget. It is also recommended that particular attention be paid to risk management to avoid wasting resources and time and that drastic measures be taken to either mitigate or minimize any risks that may arise during implementation. It is further recommended that stakeholders should be involved throughout the project so that they can take ownership of the project and promote the success of the implementation process. It is also recommended that monitoring and evaluation should be done on time to avoid cost and time variation and interruption of the project during implementation. Finally, it is recommended that government institutions should encourage more public participation in the management of public school construction projects.