Children Health Needs and It’s Influence on Pre-School Education Enrolments
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Date
2012
Authors
Murungi, Catherine Gakii
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
International Researchers
Abstract
Available literature shows that in Kenya enrolment of children in pre-school education is low. It is believed that failure
to adequately meet children’s health needs might be leading to the children’s low enrolment in pre-school education
and in other levels of education. It is for this reason that this study is designed; to establish and document children’s
health needs in relation to low enrolment especially in Imenti North District where 52% of pre-school children do not
attend pre-school and in particular 64% in Miriga Mieru West Division of the District. The main objective of this study
is to establish the relationship between children’s health needs and enrolment in pre-school. The study has used a
correlation design employing a survey method. The independent variable is health status. The dependent variable is
children’s enrolment in pre-school. The sample size of 390 parents is selected and used in the study. Children’s
households are systematically sampled whereas Imenti North District is sampled purposively. Miriga Mieru West
Division is selected due to its high population of pre-school age children (78,201) in comparison to other divisions in
the district such as; Miriga Mieru East with 64,117, Timau with 55,292 and Buuri with 45,610 as well as its low preschool
enrolment rates (64%). The study has used a questionnaire for parents and anthropometric tools for data
collection. The researcher administered the questionnaire to parents of pre-school children both with children not
attending and children attending pre-school. The t-test (two tailed) for testing equality of means for independent
samples is used to test the hypothesis (H02) A t-test (two tailed) for independent samples found no relationship
between health status and enrolment in pre-school. This study concludes that basic needs are important and unless
they are met we will continue to have large numbers of children not attending the pre-school education continuing to
increase.
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Research Article
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Citation
International Researcher Volume No.1 Issue No. 1