Factors influencing primary school participation by vulnerable children in municipality division of Kiambu county, Kenya.

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to establish the factors affecting primary school participation by vulnerable children in Municipality Division of Kiambu County. The objectives were to investigate the effect of family socioeconomic background, learner characteristics and school factors on primary school participation by vulnerable children in Municipality Division of Kiambu County. The study adopted a descriptive research design. Data was collected from 4 head teachers, 133 vulnerable children in class 7 and the coordinator Life Skills Empowerment Association in four primary schools which were purposively sampled because, they are under Life Skills Empowerment Association. The study found out that most of the pupils’ were from single parent families. Pupils performed chores such as cooking, fetching water and caring for their younger siblings on daily basis before and after school. Factors that made children stay away from the school included poverty in terms of lack of food, lack of parental care, psychological torture by some teachers and sickness of parents. The study recommends that, the government needs to provide the vulnerable children with school requirements, categorize the vulnerable children as children with special needs in education. School feeding programme should be set up to cater for all the vulnerable children. The study recommends that a similar study could be carried out in other counties to find out whether the same results will be obtained so as to allow for generalization of results.