Factors influencing transition of girls from primary to secondary school: a case of teso north district, Busia county, kenya

Abstract

As the world settles into 21 st Century and beyond gender disparities and inequali ty in education is a glaring reminder of this failed obje ctives and missed targets in regard to equal access to education as expressed by the Internation al Conferences Convention and declaration, which many countries including Kenya h as ratified. The Dakar World Education Forum (2000) and the Millenium Development Goals (M DGs) of 2000 spelt out International commitments to guide the achievement of positive re sults for gender parity by 2005 and gender equity by 2015 in primary and secondary educ ation; as well as in tertiary levels. While there has been rapid increase in the enrolmen t of girls in primary school in the developing world, transition remains a daunting cha llenge. The purpose of this research study was to determine factors influencing the transition of girls from primary school to secondary school. The objectives of this study were: to deter mine the influence of; socio-economic factors, socio-cultural factors, the role of NGOs a ctivities on transition of girls from primary to secondary school in Teso North District of Busia County. It is hoped this study may contribute to the existing body of knowledge to res earchers and academicians seeking secondary data on the factors that influence transi tion of girls from primary school to secondary school. The study was based on Liberal F eminist Theory and Transition Model. The study employed descriptive survey design which enabled the researcher to obtain opinions of head teachers, girls and parents in the ir natural setting. The target population was 130 composed of head teachers, girls who dropped ou t of school and their parents. The sample size of the study was 97 respondents. The sa mple size was derived from Krejcie and Morgan table (1970). Simple random sampling was use d to select the sample of head teachers from schools, while purposive sampling was used to select girls and their parents from the target population. Questionnaire was used to collec t data. The researcher performed pilot testing of the instrument by administering the ques tionnaires to 10% of the total sample size. Validity of the research instrument was determined through content validity while reliability was measured by use of Cronbach’s alpha. A score of 0.929 was attained thereby qualifying the research instrument as acceptable and reliable. Qualitative data was analysed using conceptual content analysis. In addition, the resea rcher conducted a Karl Pearson’s Product moment correlation coefficient to ascertain whether a statistical significant relationship exists between the independent variables and the dependent variable using the SPSS software. The study established that socio-economic factors have a great influence on transition of girls from primary to secondary school with coefficient o f 0.987. Socio-cultural factors and NGOs activities also had significant influence on transition of girls from primary to secondary with correlation coefficients of 0.964 and 0.903 respectively. Meaning in this study all the three variables had significant posit ive relationships with the dependent variable, transition of girls. From the findings, the study c oncludes that socio-economic factors have a great influence on transition of girls from primary to se condary school. The study found that resource that parents/guardians own are the significant component s of socio-economic factors which should be considered in order to achieve government policy of “Education for All” in Kenya