| dc.description.abstract | Harambee Secondary schools continue to enjoy support in Kenya today, in spite of the many visible weaknesses and limitations which characterise the way they operate. We attempted to find out in this study, reasons why this is so.
Scholars such as Keller (1973), Sheffield (1971) and Anderson (1966) portrayed these schools as institutions with a dark future. This was after questioning the education that the schools offer as they are reputed to lack essentia1 facilities and qualified staff. The~, in addition, do not perform as well as government maintained schools. Why has the support for such schools continued to exist?
The basic hypothesis explored was that demand for Harambee secondary education depends on;
a) The perceived benefits of the education attained through Harambee Secondary schools.
b) The school environment and whatever economic potential such an environment might have for the support of the schools.
c) School Management and School quality as possible features attracting support.
Several approaches of data collection were employed.
Respondents were drawn from three communities in Kakamega District : Mbale, Dudi and Mumias and three schools Mbale High School, Luanda Dudi High School and Mumias Muslim High School were chosen as case studies. The respondents contacted included parents, school leaders and initiators, students and members of teaching staff. All were interviewed face to face. Former pupils responded to a mailed question-naire. Additional data came from the Ministry of Education. The Ministry of Housing and Social Services (Culture and Social Services) and the East African Examination Councilo
We found out a number of things but the focus was on the following;
10 Tnat these schools attempt to cut down adverse publicity by denying the public knowledge of such details as the exact examination performance.
Only candidates are made to know their Individual performance. T~e parents are vaguely told the number that passed, (a number that was found, on the face value to be impressive even if all that passed might have come in fourth division)o Supporters also included those that were not curious to question school administration claiming that theirs was to help the schools and not to interfere with the administration of the school. This tended to leave the leaders with a degree of confidence which in turn was necessary for school
success.
20 That although Harambee schools do not perform well
in the examination, not all that do the eXaminations fail. Besides, the performa~ce of these schools has constantly been improving giving rise to increased support based on the hope that the performance next time will be better than what it was last time.
3. ~at students in the schools have aspir~ions and believe that education will aid them to realise their hopes.
The study reaches optimistic findings about the future
of Harambee Secondary Schools. They are constantly improving in school quality, school support and school examination performance. The Harambee Secondary School of tomorrow is going to be as good as today's high quality Government maintained schoolo Already, some Harambee schools in
Rift Valley perform conspicuously better than Government maintained schools in Kakamega Districto At one paint,
it is predicted that a time might come when some Government maintained schools will be turned into full time Harambee schools. Already, several Government maintained schools are copying modes of school support used by Harambee Secondary schools. We need studies in this area as there is every reason to believe that the phenomenon of Harambee Secondary education is an important phenomenon. | en |
