Influence of free primary education funding on pupils’ and teachers’ participation in co-curricular activities: a case of gatanga sub-county, Murang’a county, Kenya.

Abstract

Education is a vital tool in the developmental process of any given nation. In this study a critical examination was made on how the Free Primary Education (FPE) programme has influenced on co-curricular activities (CCAs) in primary schools in Gatanga county. The study was guided by the following objective:- to access the influence of enrolment levels on pupils’ and teachers’ participation in CCAs in Gatanga Sub-County, Murang’a Kenya, to establish the influence of funding on pupils’ and teachers’ participation in CCAs in Gatanga Sub-County, Murang’a Kenya, to evaluate the influence of resources allocation on pupils’ and teachers’ participation in CCAs in Gatanga Sub-County, Murang’a Kenya and to determine the influence of coaches training on pupils’ and teachers’ participation in CCAs in Gatanga Sub- County, Murang’a, Kenya. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The study was conducted in Gatanga Sub-County in Murang’a County. The district has a total number of 56 public primary schools. Both probability and non probability sampling was used to sample respondents in the study. Teachers, head teachers, zonal TAC officers and district quality and standards officer were targeted in this study as respondents. The research instruments that were used to collect the data were questionnaires for the teachers and the head teachers while an interview guide was used to collect data from zonal TAC officers and district quality and standards officer. Data obtained was coded then interfered into the computer for analysis. The sampling size was 248 out which 238 responded giving 94.35%. Validity of the research instrument was ensured by using the split halves method in four schools that were not among the ones sampled. Reliability of the test was then computed by co-relating the results of the four schools, a cronbanch co-efficient was found to be 0.7. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 18) was used for analysis. Descriptive data was obtained. Conceptual content analysis was used to analyze qualitative data. Tables were used to presents the data collected. From the analysis, the study found out the following: Enrolment levels had increased in public primary school thus 94.4% felt this influenced negatively on the teachers and pupils participating in CCAS. Funding was mostly from the government which was rate and inadequate thus also influencing on the pupils’ and teachers’ participation in CCAS. On resource allocation 91.4% of the teachers agreed that adequate CCAS resources influenced participation in pupils’ and teachers’ in CCAS and that training coaches was not strongly related to participation of teachers and pupils in CCAS as the majority of those who trained used the skills attained during the teachers training