Schooling Hidden Costs: The Correlation between Home-Based Costs and Students’ Transition Rate in Rwanda

Abstract

Implementation of Fee-Free Schooling Policy is Rwanda’s strategy to ensure equity and access to basic education. However, since the implementation of this policy, thousands of students have failed to participate in basic education hence exposing the Rwanda Educational System to wastage and failure to achieve the Universal Basic Education. The failure to enhance full participation of learners in education is attributed to several factors among them the home-based costs. This paper, therefore, discusses the impact of homebased costs on students’ transition rate in tiers of 12 years education in Rwanda. It uses data collected from parents and headteachers to correlate home-based costs incurred by parents with students’ transition rate in tiers of basic education in Rwanda. Findings from a multi-regression analysis revealed that the costs of school uniform, school material, home-coaching and transport could be highly correlated with students transition rate in tiers of 12YBE, particularly in O’ level. It is therefore recommended that basic education stakeholders should understand that the realistic fee-free structure put in place by the Government of Rwanda must go together with a sustainable programme of students’ financial assistance.