Socio-economic distribution and higher education participation of students in Kenya

Abstract

The disparity in higher education participation is a perverse problem in most developing countries. The purpose of this study was to examine the socio-economic distribution of students and higher education participation of students in Kenya from three dimensions: students’ parents socio-economic backgrounds, parental occupational status, and parental level of education. The survey sample compromising 581 respondents was selected from three higher education institutions namely; a public university, a private university and a polytechnic institution. Findings indicatethat despite the overall expansion towards mass systems imbalances in participation based on student socio-economic background is a major factor in Kenyan higher education institutions. The study reveals that higher education is selective, not only in terms of type of secondary school students attended but across parental traits such as father’s education and occupation. The economic capacity of parents is very crucial in determining who can take advantage of the best available education provision and how far a student goes up the education ladder. These findings further confirm the perverse social selection and class bias in higher education institutions with students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds less likely to participate in higher education as students from middle and higher socioeconomic backgrounds. This makes higher education access in Kenya to be highly inequitable. This disproportionate representationpresents a major challenge for education policy. In order to achieve equity and enhance access to tertiary level education, amongst all socio-economic groups, the government should seriously address disparities in school outcomes, both at primary school level and between the various secondary school types and barriers to access that are due to financial obstacles.