Government Capitation Disbursement and Final Examination Performance of Public Secondary Schools in Kisumu County, Kenya.

Abstract

The Government Capitation grant is very vital to learners both in primary and secondary schools in Kenya. The government of Kenya through Ministry of Education allocates and disburses Ksh.22, 244 and Ksh. 57, 974 to regular and special needs public secondary schools respectively. The study investigated the influence of government capitation grants disbursement delay on the final examination in public secondary schools in Kisumu County, Kenya. The study was anchored on Resource dependence theory, Wrecker`s financial distress theory and Agency theory. The study adopted descriptive longitudinal research design. The Secondary panel data set of 426 public secondary school-year end observations was used. This revealed that on average, there was 38.5 percent (mean = 0.385) delay in release of government capitation grants to public secondary school in Kisumu County. The study noted that on average, public secondary schools in Kisumu County attained K.C.S.E. mean grade of 4.534. The Sub-County secondary schools had the lowest K.C.S.E mean score of 1.839 while National Schools had the highest K.C.S.E mean score of 9.577 in Kisumu County. The study revealed that government capitation disbursement delay has negative and significant affiliation with final examination performance in public secondary schools in Kisumu County, Kenya. The study recommended that the Ministry of Education should plan to release capitation grants either a week before or latest a week after commencement of public secondary school term. The study further recommended that the government should consider use of research based differentiated unit cost in allocating capitation grants to both regular and special needs school learners.