Public Sector Investments In Kenya's Primary And Secondary Education: Recurrent Cost Implications

Abstract

In developing countries, attainment of high levels of growth depends upon human capital, in addition to other factors of production. This entails investment in education by bUilding institutions such as primary and secondary schools.

The schools in turn require teachers and other complementary inputs. In Kenya, the two components have been accounting for a rising share in central government recurrent expenditure.

The concern with this study was to investigate the determinants of salaries and other recurrent costs in primary and secondary schools in Kenya, and whether there is a recurrent cost problem in primary and secondary schools. This waS done for all primary schools and -government assisted and maintained secondary schools.

The data used covered the Period 1965-84. In both primary and secondary schools, the log-linear and linear models were found to be more suitable in analysing teachersis salaries and other recurrent costs respectively.

The results indicated that when recurrent budget was fixed, government takeover of the financing of primary schools and the number of teachers were inSignificant in influencing teachersi salaries in primary schools. However, when the budget allocated to primary schools was changing, salaries increased significantly with both the .numbe r of teachers and the included structural

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changes. Furthermore, given that the recurrent budget is fixed,

the number of pupils in primary schools significantly increased other recurrent costs in these schools- when more recurrent _funds were available, both the included structural changes and the number of pupils significantly influenced other recurrent expenditures in primary schools.

With regard to secondary education, the results revealed that the number of teachers was a significant determinant of salaries whether the recurrent budget was held constant or not. With both a fixed and a changing recurrent budget, the results indicated that

enrolment levels were insignificant in influencing other recurrent expenditures in secondary schools.

The main conclusion from this study is that in Kenya there may be no recurrent cost problem in primary schools while the problem may exist in government maintained and assisted secondary schools.