Factors Influencing Boy Child Dropout From Public Secondary Schools In Kinangop Sub County, Nyandarua County, Kenya

Abstract

The government of Kenya has placed certain measures to give basic education to its citizens by introducing Free Primary Education and Free Day Secondary Education. Despite this effort, students both boys and girls have been dropping out of school. School dropout for both boys and girls is a very serious issue not only in Kenya but also in the whole world. Studies have been carried out on the girl child and factors that contribute to them dropping out of school. Consequently, the boy child has been neglected. The boy child is consequently threatened and the boy child feels left out. The main purpose for the study was to investigate the factors that influence boy-child dropout from public secondary schools in Kinangop sub-county, Nyandarua County. The objectives of the study were to find out how socio-economic, socio-cultural and learner characteristics influence the drop out of the boy-child from public secondary schools in Kinangop sub-county of Nyandarua County. The study adopted descriptive survey research design. The researcher targeted 26 public secondary schools in Kinangop sub-County, where a sample of 148 respondents comprising of 16 principals and 132 class teachers. The 16 principals were also selected to participate in the study using purposive sampling and simple random sampling to select 132 class teachers. Data was collected using questionnaires and document analysis (school records like registers). The collected data was analyzed using inferential statistics using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS V22). The socio-economic, socio-cultural and learner characteristics influence boy-child drop out from public secondary schools. The parents should be encouraged to come up with new strategies of increasing their earnings so as to increase their income and be able to pay fees for their sons. This can be communicated during parents’ meetings in the school. The principals of the schools should come up with strategies to promote completion rate among boys in public secondary schools like motivating the boys, guiding and counseling them and starting boy-child welfare that will look into problems faced by boys in school.