Influence of Food Provision on Pupils’ Participation in Primary Education in Public and Private Schools in Mogotio Sub-county, Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of food provision on pupils’ participation in education in public and private primary schools in Mogotio Sub-County, Baringo County, Kenya. It was guided by three objectives which included; to determine the influence of food provision on pupils’ enrolment, school attendance and completion rate in public and private primary schools. The literature review focused on different scholars’ works relating to the pupils participation and food provision in schools. This study employed descriptive survey research design. The total population for this study consisted of headteachers, teachers, standard eight pupils and parents in public and private primary schools. The study used stratified sampling to select schools based on their category to participate in the study. In public primary schools, the schools were divided into strata based on the three educational zones to ensure equal representation. Five schools were picked randomly from each zone to add up to 15 sample public schools. All the 12 private schools were sampled due to their small number. Census sampling was used to select all the head teachers in the sampled schools. Simple random sampling was used to sample five teachers and ten pupils from each sampled school in both categories of schools. Therefore the total sample for the study comprised of 15 head teachers, 75 teacher and 150 pupils from public primary schools and 12 head teachers, 60 teachers and 120 pupils from private schools. Also 20 parents from each category of schools was selected making a total of 40 parents. Data in the study was collected using questionnaires and an interview guide. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze the collected data and presented inform of frequency distribution and percentages. The study findings showed that pupils’ enrolment in public primary schools was largely influenced by food provision than their counterparts in private schools. The study findings revealed that school meals helped to retains pupils in schools to a large extent in public primary schools than in private primary schools. The findings of the study also showed that school meals influenced pupils’ completion rate more in public schools than in private schools. The study recommended that the high spirit with the parents towards contribution of food in the schools should continue since this had a positive effect on enrolment. The school management should also come up with more strategies related to expansion of the school gardens to cater for a high capacity of children. The study suggested that a study should be done to establish whether food provision had the same effect on participation of learners in early childhood education.