Abstract:
Higher education is the ultimate aim of every parent who has a child in primary or
secondary school in Kenya today. Despite the rapid expansion of higher education in the
last two decades, the challenges of gender disparity in favor of boys remain. The purpose of this study was to investigate the challenges facing the girl-child access to university education in arid and semi arid lands/regions CASAL's) of Kenya. The study sought to determine the effects of university programmes offered on access of girls to university education, to determine school factors, economic factors and socio-cultural factors affecting access of girls to university education. The study adopted the descriptive survey design; both quantitative and qualitative methodology was used to achieve the objectives of the study. The research was guided by the Educational Production Function theory. The study was carried out in Keiyo district, Kenya. The target population was secondary school head teachers, career teachers, QASO Officials, form three and form four students. Purposive sampling was used to select the 10 ASAL region schools and simple random sampling was used to select 10 schools in the non-ASAL regions and a sample size of 263 respondents was used in the study. Data was collected by use of questionnaire, interview schedules and additional information was collected from official documents and publications. Data collected was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Percentages, frequency distribution tables and one-way ANOVA analysis were used. The findings revealed that majority of the students were not aware of the university programmes currently offered and that girls had a negative attitude towards the programmes. It was established that girls perform better in arts based courses compared to the science based. The study also established that the major reasons for the low level of access were lack of career counseling, little attention given to girls by teachers, teenage pregnancies and majority of the parents preferring investing in the education of their sons to that of their daughters. The study concluded that girls accessed university education at low levels compared to boys. Arising from these conclusions the study recommended that parents should be encouraged to invest in the education of their children without discrimination. It also recommended that negative cultural practices disadvantage girls to be discarded and also career counseling to be intensified in schools. This will help to increase level of girls' access to university education and mainstream gender to ensure equality in access to university education.