| dc.description.abstract | Education represents the only way out of a life of entrenched poverty for most
of the Africa`s children. The boy child now makes up a marginalized group;
there were more female students than males enrolled in Maara District
secondary schools in the period 2008 -2012. The purpose of the study was to
investigate school based factors influencing retention of boys in secondary
schools in Maara District of Tharaka Nithi County. This study sought to
determine the extent to which teachers’ attitudes towards male students,
repetition, adequacy of physical facilities and principals support for guidance
and counseling influenced retention of boys in Secondary Schools of Maara
District. The study adopted a descriptive research design and targeted 40
principals, 510 teachers and 7,693 boys in 5 boys’ schools and 35 mixed
secondary schools in Maara District of Tharaka Nithi County. Stratified
sampling was used to come up with a sample of 20 principals, 102 teachers
and 769 students. The data was collected using self-administered
questionnaires. Descriptive statistics (frequencies and percentages) were used
to analyze data with the help of SPSS software. The findings were presented in
form of tables and figures. Majority of the principals in the study indicated
that boys’ school dropout was a big problem in their respective schools.
Majority of the teachers indicated that there existed cut-off points which
students had to attain in order to be promoted to the next class failure to which
a student was forced to repeat the same class. A significant number of the
students indicated that their teachers encouraged, inspired, motivated them,
created an exciting atmosphere and paid equal attention to the weak and bright
students. Majority of the students in the study indicated that their schools’
physical facilities were good. A significant number of students in the study
indicated that their respective schools had guidance and counseling teachers.
Teachers’ attitude towards male students had a weak positive correlation
(r=0.118, df=97, p>0.05) with retention of boys. Repetition(r=0.641, df=97,
p<0.05) had a strong positive correlation with boys’ retention in secondary
schools. Adequacy of physical facilities had a weak negative correlation (r= -
0.296, df=97, r>0.05) with retention of boys. Principal’s support for guidance
had a weak negative correlation (r= -0.118, df=97, p>0.05) with boys
retention. The researcher concluded that repetition of boys in school
contributes to a very large extent in poor retention rates and high boys’
dropout rates in public secondary schools. The researcher recommended that
repetition should be banned by the ministry of education; instead, structures
should be put in place that identify weak students and offer them special
programmes. The researcher also recommended that principals and teachers
should desist from making weak students repeat as a method of improving
performance. | en_US |
