Determinants of Education Output in Public Secondary Schools in Central Province, Kenya
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Date
2012-03-19
Authors
Ndiritu, John K.
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Abstract
Secondary education is indeed a crucial stage for the education system. This is where
some primary schoolteachers are trained; it is also where the future students of higher
education are selected having been taught essential skills. It is believed that students enter
secondary schools as children and leave as young adults. This change of children to
young educated adults calls for various inputs within the school setup. Each of these
inputs is assumed to have a certain impact on the young adult produced by the school. It
is, therefore, crucial to evaluate all the processes that students undergo through the
secondary education level with an aim of identifying educational inputs with the greatest
impact on the school product (output). This study was aimed at establishing the major
determinants of output in secondary education and the extent to which each educational
input used in the study explains the output. The study used survey design, which is
concerned with the generalized statistics that result when data are abstracted from a
number of individual cases. This study was carried out in Central Province, Kenya.
According to Ministry of Education, Statistics Section, there were 690 public secondary
schools in Central Province by 2008. Further, there was a total of205,157 students in the
province by 2008. The study was carried out in the public secondary schools where a
sample of 69 public secondary schools represented by the head teachers, and 400 students
were used from the province. The researcher used two questionnaires; one for the head
teachers and another for form four students. Data analysis was done using SPSS and
STATA. Regression analysis was used to estimate the relationship between inputs and
educational output. After the study it came out clearly that among the endogenous inputs,
the key determinant input on education output is student prior performance. The
researcher regressed student current performance against his/her previous performance
and the result gave a coefficient of determination of 94.3%. The second key determinant
of education output is teacher experience. For the sake of this study, three year
experience was used as the benchmark for an experienced teacher. On regressing student
performance against teachers' experience, the results indicated that experience accounts
for 75.7% of variability in the student performance. Further, the study found that most
endogenous and exogenous inputs are key determinants of female than male student
performance. The study recommends that the government and other stakeholders should
provide more resources to ensure that more teachers at secondary school level acquire
more skills. The fact that the higher the teacher qualification, the better the student
performance means that more resources should be provided to ensure that even those
teachers with the first degree pursue masters and doctoral degrees. Further, educational
policy-makers should ensure that the investment made in teachers is sufficient and
proportionate to the demands placed upon them. The fact that education inputs determine
performance in females more than in males implies that female students in co-educational
institutes should be fully equipped, while girls schools should be provided with more
facilities. Based on these recommendations, the study proposes that similar studies should
be carried out in primary and university levels of education. Further, a study on key
determinants of male performance should be carried out as the inputs used in the study
showed very low impact on male performance.
Description
Monograph
Department of Educational Management, Policy and Curriculum Studies,174p.The LB 1607.5 .K4N34
Department of Educational Management, Policy and Curriculum Studies,174p.The LB 1607.5 .K4N34
Keywords
Education,secondary --Kenya --Central province, High schools --Curricula --Kenya --Central province