Determining the influence of secondary schools location on their operational efficiency: A case of Bungoma south sub-county

Abstract

The rising cost of secondary education in Kenya has been a major cause of concern accounting for a large proportion of the dropout rate at the secondary school level in addition to denying education to many from the low socio-economic status. The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of spatial factors on the operational efficiency of secondary schools in Bungoma South Sub-county. A descriptive survey design was used in the study. The theoretical framework adopted was the Micro-economic cost function model for assessing operational efficiency. The following objectives guided this study; to determine the influences of school size, Average Interschool Distance, Average teacher salary, Student -classroom ratio and Average Non-teacher recurrent expenditure on Unit cost. Stratified proportionate random sampling was used to select 19 secondary schools from a target population of 46 secondary schools area. The respondents were the principals in the sampled schools. The study used a structured questionnaire which was served to the principals. Validity and reliability of the research instrument was established through a pilot study done in two schools in Sirisia Sub-county. Data obtained from the research instruments recoded and keyed in to the SPSS 12.0 computer software. The package enabled the analysis of data with the use of descriptive techniques (percentages, means, and frequency tables) as well as inferential technique of multiple regressions analysis to determine relationships among the variables. All Coefficients in the regression model were tested on a t-test at a confidence level of 0.05. The study established that schools were established within an average of 3.7km which left about 73% of the schools having less than the optimum size of 409 students. Schools located very close to each other experience higher unit costs hence the schools experience difficulties in financial management, underutilization of physical resources and higher recurrent expenditures per student which lead to operational inefficiency and higher direct costs of education to parents. The study recommends that Ministry of Education through Quality Assurance division should carefully assess the enrolments in existing secondary schools to ensure that they attain recommended size of three streamed before registering new ones within similar catchments.