Relationship Between Subsidized Secondary Education and Students Participation in Public Secondary Schools in Wajir East Sub-County, Wajir County, Kenya

Abstract

The Kenyan Government began implementation of funds for subsidization of secondary education in the year 2008 as a way of reducing education cost to ensure parents have increased affordability to education. The Kenyan Government disbursed 2.9 billion to cater for funds for subsidization of secondary education and allocated Ksh 22,244 per learner in both day and boarding secondary schools to cater for operation and tuition costs. However, from its inception, there have been many concerns raised on whether its execution has any impact on learner’ participation in secondary schools. In spite of introduction of Funds for subsidization of secondary education to enhance access, completion and rate of retention of student, secondary schools in Wajir East Sub-County, declining levels of secondary schools ‘rate of completion continue to be reported. The objective of this study was to find out the relation that exists between funds for subsidization of secondary education and the rate of learner completion in schools. The study applied a correlational research design. The populationtargeted in this study was drawn from 14 secondary schools, comprising of learner, teachers and principals together with the Sub-County Directors of Education totaling to 2031.Sub-County Director of Education was selected using Purposive sampling method, while simple random sampling was used to employ to choose 14 principals and 59 teachers and 182 learners. Thus, the sample size was 256 respondents. The data collection tools included the questionnaire and an interview schedule. A pilot research was carried out in two schools sampled from neighboring Wajir West Sub-County.The instruments validity was ensured by expert judgment of the supervisors. The reliability of the instruments was ensured using the Test-re-test method. The reliability test on the Principals and teacher’s questionnaire yielded score of 0.851. The learner’s questionnaire as well as the interview schedule used for Sub-County Director of Education showed a reliability score of 0.820 and 0.812 respectively, thus deeming the instruments reliable. Qualitative data that was collected was coded, tabulated and analyzed with use of (SPSS); version 21.A Chi-square (χ²) test of independence was employed to test the Hypothesis at a significance level of 0.05.The information obtained of the study revealed that government funds for subsidization of secondary education funds were adequately catering for all learners to access secondary education. However, more SSE funding was still required to increase learner’s access to secondary education of children from poor families. Through funds for subsidization of secondary education fund, the rate of retentions of completion had improved significantly. The main challenge of SSE fund was that it was distributed to schools according the learner enrollment in the schools, a method that disadvantaged the schools with few learners and favoring already established schools that had many learners. Timely disbursement of SSE funds influenced learner’s rate of completion. Through SSE fund, learners dropouts had reduced significantly over the years as learner do not miss exams nor do they drop out of school due to lack of unaffordable education. The study recommends that the Kenyan government through Education Ministry should diversify and increase the education subsidies sent to secondary schools as the study revealed that they were not adequate to enhance learner’s participation fully in secondary schools in Wajir East Sub-County. The government of Kenya should ensure that more funds are allocated to schools. This will enable them expansion of school facilities to cater for increased student population in the secondary schools.