Abstract:
Education plays a critical role in promoting economic, social, cultural and political
development of individuals, communities, nations and humanities. The Government of
Kenya has consequently been allocating substantial resources to the education sector. In
fact, the Government has been shouldering tuition fees in all public secondary schools
since 2008. Despite these efforts by the Government, there are notable wastage in
secondary school education sector probably due to internal inefficient operations in
school. The purpose of the study was to establish effects of socio-economic factors on
internal efficiency of education in public day secondary schools in Chepalungu Sub
County. There was a need to determine the extent to which parental level of education
influenced internal efficiency of education, establishment of the extent to which family
structure influenced internal efficiency of education, examination of the extent to which
parental income levels influenced internal efficiency of education and establishment of
the extent to which students‘ engagement in household duties influenced internal
efficiency of education. The study adopted educational production theory which asserts
that an education process is looked at as where inputs are converted into outputs. This
was a descriptive survey study that targeted a population of 327 Class Teachers, 3277
students and 62 principals. A sample of 14 schools, 66 class teachers and 346 students
were used. Field survey method was adopted to collect data using questionnaires and
document analysis. Data collected was analyzed using statistical package for social
sciences (SPSS version 21) and presented using tables, frequencies and percentages. The
analysis revealed several socio-economic factors influencing internal efficiency in the
provision of secondary education in Chepalungu Sub-County. These factors are: parental
education levels, family structure, parental income level and student‘s engagement in
household duties. The study found out that cases of retention rates are very low due to
family instability, low levels of parental education, the structure of the child‘s family and
the students‘ engagement in household duties. Absenteeism is also a big challenge being
caused by parental attitudes, truancy, and orphan status. Also, most parents in
Chepalungu sub-county are depicted to be poor or very poor as most parents are
subsistence farmers, small scale business persons or casual workers. Their education
level and background is crucial in students‘ progress in education. From the findings of
the study the researcher recommends that the impoverished status of the sub-county
should be addressed as a matter of urgency by the community with the assistance of the
government for the parents to have reliable sources of income to economically support
their children in school. There should be a departure from the reliance on formal or
salaried employment which at the moment accounts for less than 30% of the total
employment. The researcher also recommends further research to be conducted to
determine the status of internal efficiency in private secondary schools in Kenya
