Influence of Family Social Economic Parameters on Internal Efficiency of Public Primary Schools in Western Province of Rwanda

Abstract

Education is the process by which human beings acquire attitudes, norms, culture, values, knowledge and skills that help receivers (leaners) to become useful members of the society. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of family social economic parameters on internal efficiency in public primary schools in Western Province of Rwanda. This study was guided by four specific objectives and four research hypotheses focusing on parental occupations, parental incomes, parental educational levels and family housing conditions and their influences on internal efficiency of public primary schools. The study was guided by educational production function theory. The target population was 96 public primary schools in Western province with 9127 people including 8640 pupils, 384 teachers, 96 headteachers and 7 District directors of Education (DDE). The sample size was 527 respondents, of which 384 were pupils, 115 teachers; 28 headteachers and 2 DDE. Slovene formula for sampling, cluster sampling; systematic sampling; and simple random sampling techniques were sampling techniques adopted in this study. Questionnaires, interview guide and document analysis schedules were taken as research instruments. The collected data was coded and entered into the computer for analysis by using SPSS 22nd. Quantitative data was analyzed descriptively (mean, frequencies, percentages and Std. Dev), and inferential statistics (ANOVA, T-test, correlation and regression) were also computed. Qualitative data was analyzed using thematic approach. Throughout the findings, it was revealed that about 40% pupils perform in third division, pupils whose parents were jobless scored the lowest score 45%, dropout and repetition rates was very high among pupils whose parents fishers , the study find strong positive correlation between parental occupation and performance (r= 0.85p = 000), negative correlation between parental occupation and repetition (r=-0.42, p= 0.00), parental occupation and dropout (r= -0.32), from here, it was concluded that there is a statistically significant influence of parental occupations on internal efficiency in public primary schools in Western province of Rwanda. On the second objective, it was established that 53.4% of pupils’ families have average income, 66.60% of pupils have never taken breakfast, 68.4 never take Lunch. It was also revealed high dropout and repetition rates among pupils whose parents were in category of I Ubudehe (low income) 41.75% and 36.9% respectively and that pupils in the first category of Ubudehe recoded the lowest mean scores of 49.4%, and that a low positive degree of relationship between parental income and internal efficiency of public primary schools. . On the third objective, it was revealed that most of parents in Western province of Rwanda had primary Level of education (45.9% & 44.8%) fathers and mothers respectively. The study revealed high negative degree of relationship between parental educational levels and dropout rate (r= -0.759, P= .000); and Repetition rate (r= -0.701, P= .000), and that parental education levels explain 40.3% on the variation of internal efficiency of primary schools in Western province of Rwanda. The study found statistically significant influence of parental educational levels on internal efficiency in primary school. On the fourth objective, findings revealed that a majority of the pupils’ families in Western province of Rwanda have more than 6 members, to the same extent in most of the cases pupils living house have more than 4 rooms, 43.9%, 70.8% have electricity and clean water respectively. It was concluded that there is no statistically significant influence of family housing condition on internal efficiency in primary schools in Western Province of Rwanda. Researcher encourage the government of Rwanda to put in place some measures to improve parental incomes

and parental education levels, introduction of school feeding programs in public primary schools in Western province of Rwanda.