Determinants of parents’ satisfaction with quality of services offered in pre-primary schools in Makadara Sub-County, Kenya

Abstract

ABSTRACT Since parents create an ongoing demand for preprimary education, how they perceive the quality of service offered in pre-primary schools is imperative. This study sought to investigate the determinants of parents’ satisfaction with quality of services offered in preprimary schools in Makadara sub-County, Kenya. The study was guided by; the Expectancy- Disconfirmation Theory of Customer Satisfaction and the Interactive School Polls’ Conceptual Model of Parents’ School Satisfaction. The correlation research design was used in this study. The target population of the study were parents with children aged 3 to 6 years enrolled in licensed pre-primary schools in Makadara Sub- County. The Ministry of Education Science and Technology indicated that there were a total of 94 licensed pre-primary schools with 60 of them public and 34 private; with 500 and 675 children respectively. The study made use of multi-stage sampling techniques to come up with a sample. In total, the sample size was 118 parents, which is 10% of the entire population; 50 in public and 68 in private pre-primary schools. The instrument used in this study was a questionnaire for parents. A pilot study was carried out in two pre-primary schools. Content validity of the instrument was achieved by ensuring the items covered all variables and objectives of the study. The reliability of the instrument was determined by using test re-test method. The same parents were given the same questionnaire within a two weeks’ interval. The coding, entering and analysis of the quantitative data was done using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22. Descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviations) were computed to determine parent’s satisfaction with quality of services offered in pre-primary schools. The Chi-square test was used to examine whether there were any significant relationships in parent’s satisfaction with quality of pre-primary education in relation to type of school, parents gender, parents income and education level. The study found out that the availability and adequacy of learning materials in the pre-school influenced parental satisfaction with the quality of education. The study therefore recommended that management of private and public pre-schools should seek to improve on their infrastructure, encourage teachers to attend classes and to have enough textbooks for the kids. This would improve both public and private pre-schools as the gap between them would be minimalized. Ministry of Education science and technology should review or develop new policy that strongly supports parent-teacher relationships to ensure quality pre-primary education.