The Effect Of Socio-economic Factors On Students' Participation In Public Day secondary Schools In Embakasi District Of Nairobi County

Abstract

Education is a foundation right for every person, a key to other human rights, the heart of all developments and more production. This explains why many countries all over the world Kenya included increase budgetary allocations towards education in relation to other government sectors. There is however continued concern over the number of students who do not attend classes regularly while some do not complete school and graduate especially at secondary level. This study was set out to establish the effects of social economic factors on students' participation in public day secondary school III Emhakasi District in Nairobi County. The study also sought to examine recommendations on ways to enhance students' participation in public day secondary schools. From the literature review a number of studies revealed that the factors affecting students' participation vary according to social economic, cultural and geographical settings of the regions. The target population was the class teachers, the students and the parents of the public day secondary schools in Embakasi District of Nairobi County. The students and teachers' sample were selected based on streams, gender and class determined by random sampling. Questionnaires and interviews were used to collect data. Data was analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. The analysis of the study revealed that there are socioeconomic problems affecting students' participation, leading the factors cited as causes of absenteeism/drop out were: Lack of school fees, Family conflicts such as divorce, poor grades, teenage pregnancies, domestic chores, taking up jobs to supplement family income, taking up jobs like matatu toutslhouse helps and lack of money for bus fare. Majority of the parents were found to have only basic foundation which is secondary education. These trends were seen to demonstrate a correlation between social economic factors and students' participation in public day secondary school. This study concluded that there is need to address the social economic factors affecting students' participation in order to promote education in Embakasi district. This could be done by awarding of bursary equally to needy students in high school instead of considering the bright students only, increasing the number of public boarding schools and stiff penalties on parents whose children drop out of school to be introduced. Every school to have an effective guidance and counseling department to assist the learners cope with problems and parents to understand the needs of students in the public day secondary schools. The government through different stakeholders should empower parents by provision of school-feeding programs. Based on the study findings, it is recommended that similar research could be carried out in other parts of Kenya since different parts of the country have different characteristics. Further research could also include more research tools such as document analysis for instance admission registers, class registers and nominal roles in KCSE examination to enable the researcher to get information on schools attendance and cases of school dropout.