Factors determining student’s enrolment in B.ED school based programmes: a comparative study of Moi and Kampala international universities

Abstract

School Based Programmes and Privately Sponsored Students Programmes (PSSP) were established by Kenyan Public Universities to cater for those people who are working or missed opportunities to attain higher education. Despite this endeavours; Kenyan students still opt to enroll for similar courses outside the country. Cross border education is not only worrying to the university but the country as well because it affects economic growth, since money is taken out of the country to finance Higher Education. The purpose of this study was to establish factors that determine students’ enrolment choice into B.ED School Based Programme (SBP) between Moi University (MU) and Kampala International University (KIU). Specifically the study examined programmes costs, flexibility of the programme delivery and marketing, duration, type acceptability and quality of B.ED SBP programmes offered, social-economic profile of students and satisfaction on quality of service. Conceptual framework of the study was derived from the client satisfaction model. The study was carried out at Kampala International University in Uganda and Moi University, Kenya. The study population was 333 and 3,250 SBP students in MU and KIU respectively from which a sample of 240 respondents was randomly selected. Purposive sampling was also used to select coordinators, administrators and directors of the programmes. Questionnaires and interview schedules were used to collect primary data after being standardized while document analysis was used to generate secondary data. Data gathered were analyzed using descriptive statistics both qualitatively and quantitatively, in particular mean, percentages and frequencies using the SPSS software computer package. The findings of this study showed that majority of SBP students opted to enroll in KIU due to low cost of their programmes, variety of courses offered, short duration to graduate, flexibility of their degree programmes and aggressive marketing. Social economic characteristics variables such as current educational qualification, marital status, nature of employment, length of employment, source of finance and income per month played a significant role in determining enrolment in addition to students’ service satisfaction in both universities. Students’ participation in policy making made them feel that they were part and parcel of the system and helped to enhance their service satisfaction and enrolment.In view of the findings, the study recommends that universities (both KIU and MU) need to review the cost of SBP, aggressively market their products both locally, regionally and internationally through exhibitions and media, involve students in the management particularly those relating to policy guidelines governing the administration of their programmes amongst others. The study suggests a replica study in other universities, a study on attitudes of conventional students towards the programme and an assessment of quality management and instructors effectiveness for further research.