Factors Influencing Allocation of Bursaries to Students in Public Secondary Schools in Central Division of Machakos District in Machakos County

Abstract

Education is a profitable private investment yet many students cannot afford to finance it out of their own family resources. Allocation of Bursaries to the poor and vulnerable enables such groups to access and complete school. The purpose of this study was to analyze factors influencing allocation of bursaries to students in public secondary schools in Central division, Machakos District. The objectives of this study were: to establish the extent to which family characteristics influence allocation of bursaries, to examine how gender consideration influence allocation of bursaries, to assess the extent to which students performance in class influence allocation of bursaries and to establish how political patronage influence allocation of bursaries. This study was inclined to the Human Capital Theory. Descriptive research design was adopted for the study. Krejcie and Morgan table was used to select a sample of 375 respondents from a universe of 13567 students. Stratified sampling was used to select 12 principals which is equivalent to 30% of 40 principals. The researcher used questionnaires for students and interview schedule for principals as research instruments. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze data by use of frequencies and percentages. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used as a tool to aid the analysis. The findings of this study were: there is a significant relationship between family characteristics and bursary allocation. Children from the poor families were considered for bursary allocation more than those from rich families. Also there was a significant relationship between gender and bursary allocation. The girls were being considered more for the bursary allocation than the boys. This was done so as to encourage the girl participation in education. The study revealed that there is a significant relationship between student’s performance and bursary allocation. The bright children from poor families were benefiting more from bursary allocation than those who were not bright. It was finally established that there was a significant relationship between political patronage and bursary allocation. The politicians were interfering with the appointment of the bursary committee members as well as the allocation of the bursaries. This study recommends that the Government increases the bursary allocations to the students from poor families who can be identified through the school principals ,the bursary committees should allocate bursary to all the deserving students irrespective of their gender, the bursary committees should allocate bursaries even to the academically challenged students since their poor performance might be as a result of absenteeism caused by lack of school fees and politicians should not interfere with bursary allocation either directly or indirectly. Further research should be conducted to establish the impact of constituency bursary funds on student’s performance. A research should also be undertaken to establish factors affecting management of constituency bursary funds.