The contributions of parents to the cost of upper primary education and its implications for free primary education; a case of South Nyanza, Kenya
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Date
2011-05-01
Authors
Ogeta O. Norbert
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Abstract
Due to the large enrolments, rising costs of education and the demands of the other sectors of the economy, in sessional paper No. 1 of 1986, the government legitimized cost-sharing policy in which parents were given more responsibilities of providing more funds for meeting the costs of primary education.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the adequacy of parents' contribution to the cot of upper primary education. More specifically the study sought to find out whether parents' contributions were actually adequate or sufficient in meeting the cost of upper primary education.
A descriptive survey design was used in this study. The sample of the study comprised 496 parents and 124 headteachers . A total of 120 head teachers and 450 parents responded to the questionnaires and the interview schedules respectively. An interview schedule for parents and a questionnaire for head teachers were the two instruments used for data collection.
In analyzing the collected data, percentages, means, standard deviation, t-tests were used. The level of testing the hypothesis was set at 0.05 level of confidence.
The findings showed that parents had low financial abilities in meeting the costs of upper primary education because of their low income. It was also due to unreliability of the various occupations they were engaged in as sources of income for providing funds to meet the cost of upper primary education. Even though parents were found to be unable
to effectively meet the cost of upper primary education because their low income, their contributions were necessary due to the inability of the government to meet the primary schools' financial needs. It was therefore recommended that school authorities should come up with some strategies for mobilizing funds from the parents and other possible sources of funding education.
It was therefore recommended that school authorities should consider soliciting funds for schools by engaging school children in income generating activities such as agriculture, keeping poultry and any other which they are capable of undertaking as a way of raising funds. Funds should also be solicited from community members, foundation bodies ( like religious organizations, commercial firms), cost-saving measures and through costsharing activities by setting benchmarks for various educational costs and ensuring that such benchmarks are not changed. The study recommended that it was necessary for school authorities to liase with the local leaders such as the local chiefs who were in better position to mobilize community groups to participate effectively in school projects like fundraising for individual schools. The study concluded that married male parents who were engaged in 12 occupations were more economically able to meet the costs of upper primary education for their children than those parents who were engaged in six occupations. It was recommended that further research be carried out on ways and means of controlling the prices of basic facilities and resources which were required for learning in upper primary education to enable parents to effectively meet the costs of upper primary education. i.e setting benchmarks
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Education -- Finance//Education -- Parent participation