A study of teachers' attitudes towards the implementation of free primary education in public primary schools in Kikuyu Division

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to investigate what attitudes public primary school teachers' in Kikuyu Division- Kiambu District have towards the implementation of Free Primary Education. The study also sought to determine whether teacher's sex, age, teaching experience, academic and professional qualifications have effect on their attitudes towards the implementation of FPE. Moreover, the study sought to determine the facilities that teachers' use while implementing FPE .It also sought to investigate the problems faced by teachers while implementing FPE and identify possible solutions to the problems affecting effective implementation of FPE.The study was expost facto in design. The targeted population was 717 teachers. The researcher used stratified random sampling and simple random sampling to select the sample of the study. The sample size was determined by population table as described by Krejcie and Morgan 'to arrive at a sample of 306 respondents. 'Out of these, 260 respondents completed the questionnaires. This was 85% response.

The findings of the study revealed that majority of teachers had favourable disposition towards the implementation of FPE. The study also revealed that both gender and professional teaching experience influenced teachers' attitude towards the implementation of FPE. Female teachers were found to depict better attitudes than male teachers. This was so because they agreed with most of the attitude

items set. Teachers who had a teaching experience of 21 years and over were seen to depict a better attitude. Age, academic and professional qualifications were found not significant determinants of teachers' attitudes towards the implementation of FPE. Teachers' of different age, academic and professional qualifications depicted almost the same attitude. Any difference in attitude was attributed to chance and was considered not significant.

Facilities that have been provided were found to influence teachers' attitudes while the problems they face were found to be not significant determinants of their attitudes towards the implementation of FPE.The study revealed that various facilities are provided to teachers to help them implement FPE. These include: text and exercise books, stationery, teachers guides among others. It was revealed that in their endeavor to implement FPE, teachers experienced many constraints as shown on table 27.

The findings of the study led to the following conclusions: age, academic, and professional qualifications are not significant determinants of teachers attitudes towards the implementation of FPE while gender and teaching experience influenced teachers attitudes. It was recommended that the government should employ more teachers to achieve a teacher-pupil ratio of 1:40; parents to be enlightened more on their role as far as FPE is concerned; free nursery schools to be put in place and that the government to increase budget allocation for FPE to

cater for all resources. Three suggestions for further research were put forth. These were: to investigate the role of primary school committee in the implementation of FPE; perception of primary school pupils towards FPE and that research on public primary school teachers attitudes to be extended in another district to compare with this one.