The study examined the influence of teacher characteristics on drop out of students from public secondary schools. The researchers set out to establish the influence of the teacher characteristics on the drop out of students from secondary schools. The study was based on Tinto’s (1975) student integration model (SIM). The objectives of the study were to: establish the influence of lesson load and managerial responsibilities on dropout of learners, find out the extent to which teachers give attention to slow learners and finally to investigate the extent to which teachers check students work. The study adopted descriptive survey design. The respondents were 28 teachers drawn from 14 secondary schools. Simple random sampling technique was used to select the 14 schools. Purposive sampling was used to obtain 2 teachers who had stayed for the longest time in each of the selected schools. The reason for this was that those teachers who had stayed long in the selected schools had enough reasons as to why students drop out of school. A teacher questionnaire, head teacher interview schedules and documentary analysis were used to obtain necessary data for the study. The questionnaire was validated through test- retest technique. Data was analyzed quantitatively using descriptive statistics with the help of SPSS programme. Results from the study was tabulated in frequency tables and converted to percentages. The independent variable was teacher characteristic while the dependent variable was drop out of students from school. The study established that: too much work and managerial responsibilities assigned to teachers, limited attention given to slow learners by teachers in class and the failure of teachers to check students work are some of the factors that were found to influence student drop out in secondary schools. The study recommends first, teachers should give attention to slow learners so that they do not feel neglected and hence opt to drop out of school, second, teachers should frequently check students work in class in order to identify learners with problems so that they can be assisted. Third the government should establish an effective evaluation and monitoring programme to ensure that the school administrative policies do not contribute to wastage and dropout in schools.
Keywords: Drop Outs, Influence, Slow Learners, Teacher Characteristics
