Thesis Title: Parental Participation and Learner Retention in Free Day Secondary Education in Busia County, Kenya

Student’s Name: Phaustine Barasa

Supervisors Names:

Prof. Stanley Ngome Mutsoto

Dr. Simon Kipsemon Kipkenei

ABSTRACT

Education is an equalizer. In an effort to ensure that the populations in Kenya especially children from very poor households access education and better the quality of their lives, the Kenya government developed and operationalized the free day secondary education in enhancing learners’ retention. Thus, learner retention is a major indicator of institutional success. In these regard, majority of parents take their children to schools with the goal of completion. These implies that effective involvement of parents in the education of their children in schools is critical. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of parental participation on learner retention in secondary schools in Busia County. The study’s specific objectives were: to establish the effect of parental funding, provision of basic needs by parents, parental guidance, parent-school collaboration on learner retention in Secondary schools in Busia County. This study was underpinned by Epstein`s theory of parental involvement. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design with its population drawn from principals, class teachers and students’ representatives giving a target population of 1340. Stratified sampling was used to get schools in the seven sub counties, simple random sampling method was used to sample the 48 schools. Purposive sampling was used for Principals and simple random sampling was used for student representatives and class teachers. Yamane formula was used to select a suitable sample of 308 to represent the study population in data collection exercises. Questionnaire and interview schedules were used as tools for data collection. To attain validity of the research instruments the researcher sought for opinions from the colleagues and experts. Reliability of the instruments was determined through test-retest method and a Cronbach Alpha coefficient reading with a load above 0.7 considered reliable to warranty data collection from respondents. Before data collection exercise, all ethical considerations like research permit from NACOSTI and other authorities were sought. Quantitative data collected using the questionnaire was both analyzed descriptively using percentages, means and standard deviations and then subjected to regression analysis to allow inferences to be made out of the descriptive data, quantitatively. Based on the findings of the study it was concluded that there is a significant positive effect between parental participation and learner retention in Busia County Kenya. The study also concluded that parental funding, provision of basic needs parental guidance and parent-school collaboration is a significant positive predictor of learner retention in Secondary schools in Busia County. The study recommended that the government allocation to free day secondary school subsidy should be increased in order to relieve parents the burden of paying extra levies charged for instance for classroom construction and feeding programmes. The study also recommends that parents should be educated and sensitized on the importance of funding their children’s education needs as government has not covered all expenses as at now. Since the parents do not have sufficient capacity to support their children’s education satisfactorily, the study recommends that school ought to undertake income generating programmes through attraction of donations, hence, school reduced costs and better retention. The study recommends that the parents should be encouraged by all stakeholders to prioritize the provision of the basic needs required by their children. Since the study established a significant positive effect between parental counselling and learner retention, the study recommends that parents be educated and sensitized on importance of parental guidance on both educational guidance and personal guidance of their children and the study recommends that parents need to be sensitized on the role of the parents in school collaboration.