Influence of school environment on pupils’ enrolment in public primary schools in Kenya; a case of Hamisi sub-county

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine how school environment influence pupils’ enrolment in public primary schools in Hamisi Sub-County .The objectives of the study were to investigate how the adequacy of teaching / learning resources influence pupils’ enrolment in public primary schools ,to determine how adequacy of physical facilities influence pupils’ enrolment in public primary schools, to establish how pupil teacher ratio influences pupils enrolment in public primary schools and to examine the influence of indiscipline cases on pupils’ enrolment in public primary schools in Hamisi Sub- County . The research design for this study was descriptive survey design. The target population comprised of primary school head teachers and class seven pupils in Hamisi Sub-County. The sample size for headteachers was 21 and standard seven pupils at 945 .The sampling procedure used in the study involved proportional allocation of respondents to various educational zones, then applied systematic random sampling to choose the schools and purposive sampling for head teachers and stratified random sampling for class seven pupils who participated in the study. The questionnaire was the main tool for data collection. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze data using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS 17.0) This is where tables, mean, frequencies and percentages were generated.. The study found out that a combination of factors contributed to low enrolment of pupils in public primary schools. The findings of the research show that inadequacy of physical facilities like classrooms, latrines and libraries at 43 % and high pupil teacher ratio at 38 % as the main factors influencing pupils’ enrolment while 14% noted insufficient teaching /learning resources and indiscipline cases at 5% as the least factor that influence pupils enrolment in Hamisi Sub-County. The study recommends that the parents should be sensitized on need to enroll children in school and support in providing teaching /learning resources while T.S.C needs to employ more teachers so that the high teacher pupil ratio is reduced to enhance quality and access of primary education. Moreover all schools should be funded adequately to enable them build more classrooms and latrines for pupils .The Government should increase funding to cater for the essential school necessities at the same time reinforce children’s right for education especially on parents who don’t enroll their children in school . It was suggested that since the study was limited to Hamisi Sub- County there was need to replicate it to other counties in Kenya. For further research the study suggests that an evaluation study should be done to determine retention of pupils in public Primary schools in Kenya. Another study should be done to find out factors leading to decrease in boy child enrolment in public primary schools in Hamisi Sub-County. A study should be carried out on factors influencing pupils’ ability to read and write at lower primary level.