The influence of tuition waiver (2008) on quality of secondary education in Ng'enda division, Kiambu county, Kenya

Abstract

In January 2008, the Government of Kenya launched free secondary education (FSE) in all public schools in the country as a fulfillment of the education for all (EFA) global commitment and strategy to give children universal education. Concerns have however been raised by various stakeholders over the quality of secondary education upon implementation of the FSE program. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of tuition waiver (2008) on quality of secondary education in Ng'enda division, Kiambu County. The objectives of the study will be; to establish the effects of tuition waiver on student's enrollment and how this affects the quality of secondary education , to find out the current status of teaching and learning materials for implementation of FSE and how this affects the quality of secondary education , to assess the current status of physical facilities and how this affects the quality of education in secondary schools and to establish the qualification and number of teachers for implementation of FSE and how this affects the quality of education in secondary schools . The study will be undertaken in 6 public schools. It will adopt an exploratory approach using descriptive survey. The target population will be 3564 respondents consisting of 9 head teachers, 129 teachers, 3425 students and 1 AE.O. The sample size will be 376 respondents made up of6 head teachers, 26 teachers, 343 students and 1 A.E.n Stratified sampling will be used to select schools; each stratum representing county and district schools. Simple random sampling will then be used in selecting 6 out of9 schools for the study. 6 head teachers from the participating schools and 1 AE.O. will be purposely selected to take part in the actual study. In addition, 24 teachers (4 per school) and 343 students (57 per school) will be randomly selected, yielding a total of 376 participants. Questionnaires will be used as instruments for collecting data from head teachers, teachers and students while interview schedule will be administered to the AE.O. Validity of the instruments will be done through experts in research. Reliability of instruments will be done by subjecting instruments to a pilot study through the test-retest technique and then the Spearman rank:order correlation will be used to compute the correlation coefficient to establish reliability. Quantities data will be analyzed descriptively using frequency counts, means and percentages. Qualitative data will be analyzed by organizing into similar themes and tallying the number of similar responses. Results of the data analysis will be presented using frequency distribution tables, bar graphs and pie charts. This research will benefit the educationists in assessing the provision of FSE to improve the quality of education in the country