Influence of Direct and Hidden Costs of Education on Access and Retention of Learners in Primary Schools in Garissa County, Kenya
Loading...
Date
2015
Authors
Mohamed, Diyat Abdi
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Kenyatta University
Abstract
Despite the fact that the Kenyan government offers Free Primary Education, there
are still families that are not able to enroll and retain their children in school due to
direct costs of education such as payment of salaries to PTA/BOM teachers, school
uniforms, textbooks, money for school activities, and hidden costs such as
opportunity costs. These costs brought about serious exclusions of less fortunate
learners and may bring about drop out of pupils or non-attendance. This study aimed
at gaining an in-depth understanding on the influence of direct and hidden costs of
education on access and retention of learners in public primary schools in Garissa
County. This study was guided by the following objectives; to determine the impact
of payment of salaries to PTA/BOM teachers by parents, cost of school uniforms,
opportunity costs and cost of textbooks on access and retention in school. The study
of literature review revealed the concept of cost of education. Now that primary
education is free in the public primary schools in Kenya, direct and hidden costs in
education hinder access and retention of many pupils. The direct costs of education
includes school levies (PTA/BOM and support staff salaries), activity and
examination fees, development funds, books and school uniform costs while the
hidden costs includes opportunity cost. These direct and hidden costs of education
are a major concern in almost all our public primary schools since majority of the
parents cannot afford to meet them and hence access and retention are affected to a
large extent. This study adopted the descriptive survey design. The researcher used
questionnaires for headteachers, interview schedules for parents and FGDs for
learners as research instruments to collect data. A sample of 10% of the schools and
10% of the head teachers was used for this study. Krejice and Morgan's table was
used to sample the 380 parents and 381 pupils grouped in 100 FGDs. The study
found that on average, the cost of school uniform met by parents (70%), opportunity
costs (76%), cost of textbooks met by parents (71%) and payment of salaries to
PTA/BOM teachers by parents (72%) very greatly affected access to primary school
education. On average, the cost of school uniform met by parents (77%),
opportunity costs (80%), cost of textbooks met by parents (73%) and payment of
salaries to PTA/BOM teachers by parents (76%) very greatly affected retention in
school. The study recommended that findings of this study will help the government
and other educational partners such as the GOs and the private sector to come up
with interventions that go beyond the mere assumption that access and retention
rates can be increased by reducing the direct costs of education without giving a
considerable look at the impact of hidden costs as well. The study will also help the
government with the help of its development partners to increase the level of
subsidies and provide enough learning resources to primary schools.
Description
A Research Project Submitted to the School Of Education in Partial Fulfillment for the Requirement of the Award of Degree of Master of Education of Kenyatta University, July 2015