Hard to reach schools in rural districts experience many challenges including harsh environmental conditions, financial difficulties, lack of school buildings and shortage of teachers due to their locality. Teachers who accept to join such schools tend to be disengaged because of poor working environments. This study sought to identify factors related to teacher engagement in secondary schools in rural hard-to-reach areas in Uganda. Generally, the study assessed the relationship between head teachers perceived support and teacher engagement in secondary schools in Buhweju district a hard-to-reach rural district in south-western Uganda. Specifically, the study tested whether perceived support in terms of training, pay and promotion related teacher engagement. This correlational study used a sample of 220 teachers. Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire and were analysed using the quantitative approach. Data were analysed using Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) using SmartPLS 4 testing the link between the study variables. The findings revealed that while pay and training had a positive and significant relationship with teacher engagement, promotion support had a positive but insignificant relationship with teacher engagement. The conclusions of the study were to the effect that while pay is essential for teacher engagement and training is imperative for teacher engagement in hard-to-reach secondary schools in rural districts, promotion is not a probable requirement for teacher engagement in the hard-to-reach secondary schools in rural districts. Therefore, it was recommended that head teachers of secondary schools should provide pay support to teachers, and prioritise providing training to teachers but promotion should not be overemphasised

This study examined the relationship between headteachers' leadership practices and students' discipline in secondary schools in Bushenyi-Ishaka Municipality, Uganda. Particularly, the study tested the relationship between headteachers' collaborative culture practice and students' discipline, the relationship between headteachers' distributed leadership practice and students' discipline, and the relationship between the headteachers' interpersonal relationships leadership practice and students' discipline. The cross-sectional design was adopted using the quantitative and qualitative approaches. Data were collected on a sample of 310 teachers using a questionnaire survey. The findings revealed that while the collaborative culture and interpersonal relationship had a positive and significant relationship with students' discipline, distributed leadership had a negative and insignificant one. Therefore, it was concluded that the collaborative culture leadership practice is imperative for promoting students' discipline in secondary schools, distributed leadership practice is not an essential practice for promoting students' discipline in secondary schools, and interpersonal relationship leadership practice is vital for the promotion of students' discipline in secondary schools. Therefore, it was recommended that headteachers should promote collaborative culture practice in schools to promote students' discipline, headteachers should not over-emphasise distributed leadership in implementing measures of promoting student discipline, and headteachers should prioritise enhancing interpersonal relationships in secondary schools to promote students' discipline.

This study investigated the relationship between teachers’ characteristics and their use of ICT in teaching in rural secondary schools located in Bwera Sub County, Kasese District of Uganda.  Bwera Sub County is a hard-to-reach rural area in western Uganda. Specifically, the study examined whether teacher characteristics, namely, teachers perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and teacher ICT competence, influenced teachers’ use of ICT in teaching with the secondary schools. Using the correlational research design, data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire on a sample of 127 school teachers. Descriptive results revealed that teachers rated their use of ICT and perceived competence as poor, rated ICT's usefulness as good, and their use of ICT as fair. Regression analysis revealed that perceived usefulness, ease of use, and ICT competence had a positive and significant influence on ICT use in teaching and learning. It was concluded that perceived usefulness is a prerequisite for teachers’ use of ICT, perceived ease of use is imperative for the use of ICT, and competence is essential for the use of ICT. Therefore, it was recommended that in rural secondary schools, the Ministry of Education and headteachers should provide awareness training to teachers about the usefulness of IC, train teachers to use ICT, and develop their ICT competence.

Gender diversity is an essential aspect of both private and public organizations. The concept has continued to evolve because of the need to tap into different abilities possessed by different gender at the workplace. However, previous studies have not indicated to what extent workforce diversity is related to employee performance in various organizations. On this basis, the paper sought to investigate the relationship between gender diversity and employee performance in the County Government of Bomet, Kenya. The paper was guided by social identity theory. The study adopted a correlational research design, and the target population was 3,320 employees working in various departments within the County Government of Bomet. Fisher's formula was used to determine the sample size for the study, which was 91. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire. The reliability of the research instrument was examined through the use of Cronbach's alpha coefficient, where an alpha coefficient of 0.850 was obtained. Content and construct validity of the instrument validity were ensured through extensive literature review and consultation with human resource management subject experts. Data analysis was done using correlation and regression analysis. Data were presented using frequency tables, means, and standard deviation. According to the study results, it was revealed gender diversity revealed a positive relationship (r=0.689; p<0.05) with employee performance. In general, gender diversity influenced employee performance by 72.3% (R2= 0. 723). According to the study findings, it was recommended that county governments ought to advocate for workforce diversity, explicitly focusing on gender diversity to increase employee performance.