Influence of changing day secondary into boarding on students’ participation in public secondary schools in Trans Nzoia West, Kenya

Abstract

Changing day secondary into boarding schools is an emerging trend in education sector in Kenya. This trend however tends to affect students’ participation in education. This study was conducted in schools that changed from day to boarding. It sought to determine how students’ enrolment, retention, studentteacher ratio and completion are influenced by changing day secondary into boarding school in public schools in Trans Nzoia West Sub County. The study was anchored on the Change Theory by Peter Senge (1990). This was a descriptive survey research that targeted the 9 secondary schools that changed from day to boarding in Trans Nzoia West comprising of 9 principals. 24 form four class teachers and 1883 form three and form four students. Purposive sampling was used to pick the 9 principals, 9 form four class teachers and 188 students were selected using simple random sampling. The data was collected using questionnaires. The data was analyzed by calculating percentages, frequencies and presented using tables, frequencies and percentage. The study established that changing day secondary into boarding schools decreased the enrolment of students in an educational institution. This is because of the increased boarding fees as students opted to join day schools. Retention was very good as those students who had enrolled performed well as a result of increased contact hours with their teachers. Promotion was high and low cases of repetition. It was also revealed that as a result of reduced enrolment, the class size improved and the student-teacher ratio decreased. Completion also improved as students who were enrolled benefited from subsidized secondary education and bursaries. From the research several recommendations are made; whenever a school or educational stakeholders decide to change a school status from day to boarding, several mitigating factors ought to be factored in, education stakeholders should come up with modalities of starting girls’ and boys’ boarding schools, the new schools should address gender parity, the stakeholders in education should ensure that when a school changes status, children from poor backgrounds should not be locked out and incentives should be given to students to enable them access and complete the school cycle. Suggestions for further studies have also been given which include; a replica of the study should be carried out in other areas, a study on influence of changing day school into boarding on boys’/girls’ participation in education and a study on influence of changing day school to boarding on performance.