dc.description.abstract |
The start of primary schooling has been perceived as one of the most important
transitions in a child's life and also a heed to the UN declaration that all children had a
right to education. However, this has not worked well in Soy division of Eldoret West
District. The purpose of this study was to investigate factors affecting children’s
transition from Pre-primary to Class 1 the area. The study addressed the following
specific research objectives that regard children’s transition from Pre-primary to Class
1: to find out the perceived roles of parents, to determine teachers’ involvement in
handling children’s transition, to establish the roles played by the school
administration, to establish the extent of community involvement and to determine
effects of availability and appropriateness of physical facilities. The study was guided
by Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems theory (1979) which has it that children’s
transition from one class level to another is dependent upon certain factors found
within their environment. Descriptive research design was adopted in the study and
this entailed the predictions and narrations of facts and characteristics concerning
individuals or situations. Soy Division has 73 public and 47 private primary schools
with Pre-primary schools attached to them. Stratified and random sampling
techniques were used to get a representation of public and private schools. Basing on
the thirty percent [30%] requirement, stratified and simple random sampling
techniques were used to obtain a sample size of 22 public schools and 14 private
schools. Purposive sampling was used to select one head-teacher and PTA
chairperson finally, random sampling technique was used to select, one Pre-primary
school teacher and one Class 1 teacher from each of the selected schools. The
research tools that were used were questionnaires for the class 1 and Pre-primary
teachers and the structured interview schedules for the PTA chair-persons and the
head-teachers. Finally, document analysis was used to check whether the professional
records available in the sampled schools met the objectives of the study. Descriptive
statistics was used to analyze the collected data. The findings showed that the school
administration played its roles well but lacked the organization of graduation days for
the children completing the Pre-primary school level. There were some disparities in
the provision of furniture, teaching approaches used and the community support
rendered to the two class levels. The study farther showed that, pre-primary and
primary schools did not share play materials. It was therefore recommended that, the
Ministry of Education should provide more funds for community and parent
mobilization and also establishment of enough physical facilities in Pre primary
schools. Together with the later, teachers in the lower primary needed refresher
courses to enable them understand the strategies appropriate for enhancing a smooth
transition of children from pre-primary to class 1 |
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