Influence of Project Management Practices on the Implementation of Kenya Primary Education Development Project in Nakuru County

ABSTRACT: Donor funded projects are of great interests to the donor agencies, government and the beneficiaries. Among other projects, education based projects are among the highly funded projects by both the government and donors. From the review of literature, major management gaps exist in effective implementation of such projects. This study therefore sought to investigate the extent to which project management practices influence implementation of donor funded education projects in Nakuru County. The main objective was to establish the influence of project management practices specifically project planning, stakeholder involvement; schedule management and monitoring & evaluation on the implementation of the Kenya Primary Education Development project(PRIEDE) in Nakuru County. The scope of the study was in Nakuru County with a target population of 131 schools that have been given funding by World Bank for the School Improvement Plan. The study adopted a descriptive research design method with a target population of 131 schools. Simple random sampling was used to select 57 schools that formed the sample size. A questionnaire was used to collect primary data from the target population. Data was analyzed through SPSS version 25 and relationships between variables were determined using Pearson correlation, regression and analysis of variance (ANOVA). Descriptive statistics gave a summary of the data and a description of the sample characteristics. Correlations analysis showed the relationship among the variables hence finding statistical support of the hypotheses of the study.The study found out that project management practices notably:Project Planning, Stakeholder Involvement, Schedule Management and Monitoring and Evaluation had significant influence on the implementation of the PRIEDE project. The study established that the factors in thestudy accounted for a combined 75.4% of the total variation in implementation of the PRIEDE project. The study concluded that project management practices had an impact in the implementation of the PRIEDE project. The findings also established a majority agreement on the PRIEDE project being implemented according to the set timelines, budget provision, quality and scope provided by the donor agency. Consequently, the study recommended that the implementation agency should ensure proper mechanism for project planning, consultative forums for stakeholder involvement, well laid out implementation schedule for schedule management and clear structures for monitoring and evaluation are in place for effective implementation.
KEY TERMS: Project Planning, Stakeholder Involvement, Schedule Management, Monitoring and
Evaluation, Project Implementation