Direct Educational Costs and Students’ Retention Rate in Public Boarding Secondary Schools in Kenya

Abstract

Student retention in secondary school is paramount for the ultimate achievement of goals in education. This is the reason why individuals, societies, education partners and stakeholders pull together to finance education at all levels. Despite this effort, student retention in public boarding secondary schools in Kenya is wanting, Literature indicates that, costs incurred while going through secondary education may have an effect on the retention of students. This study therefore sought to establish the extent to which direct costs of education affect student retention rate in public boarding secondary schools in Uasin Gishu County, Kenya. A convergent parallel mixed methods design was used to gather both the qualitative and quantitative data. The target included 31 principals and 4012 parents. All the 31 principals were purposively selected. Yamane simplified formula was used to sample 399 parents who were then distributed among the sub counties using proportionate random sampling. Questionnaires were utilized to collect quantitative data from parents while an interview schedule helped to gather qualitative data from the principals. Document analysis provided secondary data on students’ retention. Quantitative data was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Qualitative data on the other hand was analyzed thematically. The study findings showed that, direct educational costs are crucial predictors of students’ retention rate in public boarding secondary schools. They account for 94.1% of the variance. Costs of meals, accommodation, activity fee, parents’ association fund and the costs of repairs, maintenance and improvement all contributed to the variance. However, the cost of repairs, maintenance and improvement accounts for the highest contribution (90%) as the cost of activity fee accounts for the lowest (0.01%). The study concludes that, direct educational costs affect students’ retention rate in public boarding secondary schools. The study recommends the government through the departments of basic education and early learning to reconsider waiving all the boarding costs so as to lessen the cost burden and hence enhance student retention.

Keywords: Direct educational costs, Retention, Boarding secondary schools.

DOI: 10.7176/JEP/14-3-05

Publication date: January 31^st 2023