Conflict-related Factors Influencing Boy-child Retention in Public Primary Schools in Lamu East Sub-county, Kenya

Abstract

The occurrence of perennial conflict in the community affects the livelihood of the people, more so educational access. Boys are used in conflict related activities that lead to dropout and lowered retention rates. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of conflict on retention of boy child in public primary schools in Lamu East Sub-County, Kenya. The study objectives were to determine the influence of radicalization, learners‟ involvement, and religious affiliation on boys‟ retention in public primary schools. This study was guided by Abraham Maslow‟s theory on human motivation. The study employed a descriptive survey research design. The total population consisted of 20 public primary schools in Lamu East Sub-County, where the 20 headteachers, 165 teachers and 1126 standard eight and seven pupils in public primary schools were targeted. Census sampling was used to select all the head teachers in the sampled public primary schools. Purposive sampling was used to sample 5 class teachers and discipline masters, while simple random sampling was used to sample 10 class seven and eight pupils from each sampled school. The total sample comprised of 17 head teachers, 102 teacher and 170 pupils from public primary schools. The study also involved the assistant county commissioner as a key informant. Data was collected using questionnaires and an interview guide. A pilot study was conducted in 3 public primary schools to ensure validity of the instruments. Test-retest method was used to test the reliability where a correlation of 0.08 was considered sufficient. Descriptive statistics such as frequency distribution and percentages were used to analyze collected data. The results from the study indicated that radicalization influences boys‟ retention levels in public primary schools with a correlation of 0.677. Further, the study revealed that there was a positive correlation between learners‟ involvement in conflict and retention which scored 0.738. The correlation results from teachers and head teachers‟ data indicated that there was a positive and significant correlation between religious affiliation and retention which scored 0.355. Therefore the study concluded that boys are culturally viewed as protection machinery in the conflict prone area reducing their enrolment in formal education, regular absenteeism and eventually dropping out of schooling to engage in radicalized sects as a conflict management measure. The study recommends that the schools‟ administrations to embrace programmes discouraging radicalization to improve pupils‟ especially the boy-child retention in primary education. This is through involving teachers and pupils in activities that devalue involvement in radicalized sects and engagement in conflict issues to improve on retention of primary education. The study suggested a similar study be carried out in other conflict prone areas to compare the findings