Influence of Cost Sharing on Students’ Academic Performance in Secondary Schools in Kenya: A Case of Kitui County

Abstract

Cost of education remains an impediment to access and academic performance in public secondary schools in Kenya. To mitigate this, the government introduced cost sharing where by the government through free secondary education caters for the tuition fees while the parents and other stakeholders takes care of the other costs including provision of infrastructure and other services for the boarding schools. The purpose of this study was to analyze the influence of cost sharing on student's academic performance in secondary schools in Kenya a case study of Kitui County. The objectives of the study were: to analyze the influence of government policy on students academic performance in secondary schools to assess the influence of hidden costs on students academic performance in secondary schools, The study was based in Kitui County and it targeted head teachers in public secondary schools, the PTA chairpersons in these schools and the sub-county education officers. The study used stratified sampling and simple random sampling techniques to select the respondents. The data was collected using questionnaire and interview guide. The data was analyzed using SPSS version 21 and presented through percentages, means, standard deviation and frequencies. The study established that all the variables had a significant effect on the dependent variable (Student's academic performance). The study also found that there was a positive relationship between Student's academic performance and Government policies as shown by a coefficient of 0.305, there was a negative relationship between Student's academic performance and hidden costs. This study concludes that improvements on government policies will enhance student's academic performance in secondary schools in Kenya and that hidden costs had a negative influence on student's academic performance in secondary schools in Kenya. The study recommends that policy makers, managers and other educational stakeholders should embark on rigorous context specific cost benefit and social analysis on fee abolition policy options that are feasible and could yield results for different regions/counties as problems experienced by parents on indirect costs of secondary are context/regional base. Proper measures need to be put in place to ensure consistent learning of students in schools.