Determinants of access and equity to subsidized public Secondary education in Eldoret West, Uasin-Gishu County, Kenya

Abstract

The subsidized secondary education was introduced as a result of Kenya’s effort to attain Education for All (EFA) as indicated in the Sessional Paper no. 1 of 2012. The subsidized secondary education was implemented in February, 2008 by the Coalition Government. This were to reduce cost of education for parents, increase access to education and to increase transition rates from primary to secondary transition rates in coping with the United Nations aim to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The Kenya Government announced the release of 2.9 billion for subsidized secondary education and allocated Ksh. 10,265 to every child to cater for tuition and operational costs annually. The purpose of this study is to assess the determinants of access and equity to subsidized secondary education in Eldoret West, Uasin Gishu County. The following were the objectives of the study; to determine the effect of gross enrollment rates, to determine the effect of educational resources, to determine socio-economic factors of households and to establish the effect of allocation of government resources on access and equity to subsidized secondary education in public secondary schools in Eldoret West. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The target population comprised of 28 public secondary schools in Eldoret West with 2,536 students who are under The Sub-County Education Officer, 16 Head Teachers and 227 class teacher was used. Purposive and stratified simple random samplings were employed. Questionnaires and Interview schedules were the main data collection instruments. A pilot study was conducted to determine the reliability of the research instruments in 3 public secondary schools in Eldoret East Sub-County. Data was collected, coded and entered into the computer for analysis using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The collected data was analyzed using both inferential and descriptive statistics such as frequency tables, bar graphs, pie charts and measures of central tendency. The study results revealed that there was a significant relationship between gross enrolment rates and access and equity to subsidized secondary education (p=0.005); there was a significant relationship between educational resources and access and equity to subsidized secondary education (p=0.001). The study concluded that subsidized secondary education has enabled more students to access secondary education. The average number of students per class has been increasing over the years. The study recommended that the government should allocate more funds to schools to enable them expand their facilities to accommodate the high number of students seeking secondary education.