Effectiveness of Community Support Grant in the provision of learning materials in Public Pre- Schools in Koibatek District, Kenya.

Abstract

The financing of public pre-schools in Kenya is done on cost sharing policy between the government and the community. The Ministry of Education introduced Community Support Grant (CSG) in 2007 to improve the quality of teaching and learning materials and to address the problem created through introduction of FPE as parents opted to take their children straight to primary schools to avoid payments in pre-schools. This fund is given to vulnerable areas of the country. The purpose of the study was to establish the effectiveness of CSG in the provision of learning and teaching resources in public pre- schools in Koibatek District. The objectives of the study were; to establish the effect of Community Support Grant (CSG) on the provision of learning and teaching materials, to establish the effect of CSG on the provision of teachers and infrastructure, to determine the effect of CSG on the enrolment of children in public pre-schools and to investigate the attitude of the community on CSG. The independent variable is the CSG and dependent variable is the provision of learning materials in public pre-schools. The study adopted the chaos theory which explains the non-linearity and unpredictability of social systems behavior. The study used descriptive survey design. Simple random sampling was used to select the pre-schools. From the randomly selected schools the primary head teachers and pre-school teachers were the respondents. Purposive sampling was used to select officials from the District Education office who included the District Education Officer, the Early Childhood Development programming officer and the District Quality Assurance and Standard Officer. The research instruments used in the study were questionnaires and interview schedule, which were tested for reliability and validity by carrying out a pilot study in two pre-schools in Eldoret East District. Pearson's Product Moment Correlation was used to test reliability of the questionnaires. Analysis of data was done using both descriptive and inferential statistics like percentages, means, standard deviation, correlation and chi-square. The findings showed that receiving CSG had impacted on the provision of infrastructure in public pre- schools and this was seen on construction of classrooms and additional latrines. However, CSG had no impact on provision of learning and teaching materials and on the enrolment of the children. The government should fund pre-school education fully. These results would be useful to the government in formulation of policies pertaining to pre-schools.