| dc.description.abstract | Education is a profitable private investment yet many students cannot afford to finance it
out of their own family resources. Allocation of Bursaries to the poor and vulnerable
enables such groups to access and complete school. The purpose of this study was to
analyze factors influencing allocation of bursaries to students in public secondary schools
in Central division, Machakos District. The objectives of this study were: to establish the
extent to which family characteristics influence allocation of bursaries, to examine how
gender consideration influence allocation of bursaries, to assess the extent to which
students performance in class influence allocation of bursaries and to establish how
political patronage influence allocation of bursaries. This study was inclined to the Human
Capital Theory. Descriptive research design was adopted for the study. Krejcie and
Morgan table was used to select a sample of 375 respondents from a universe of 13567
students. Stratified sampling was used to select 12 principals which is equivalent to 30%
of 40 principals. The researcher used questionnaires for students and interview schedule
for principals as research instruments. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze data by
use of frequencies and percentages. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was
used as a tool to aid the analysis. The findings of this study were: there is a significant
relationship between family characteristics and bursary allocation. Children from the poor
families were considered for bursary allocation more than those from rich families. Also
there was a significant relationship between gender and bursary allocation. The girls were
being considered more for the bursary allocation than the boys. This was done so as to
encourage the girl participation in education. The study revealed that there is a significant
relationship between student’s performance and bursary allocation. The bright children
from poor families were benefiting more from bursary allocation than those who were not
bright. It was finally established that there was a significant relationship between political
patronage and bursary allocation. The politicians were interfering with the appointment of
the bursary committee members as well as the allocation of the bursaries. This study
recommends that the Government increases the bursary allocations to the students from
poor families who can be identified through the school principals ,the bursary committees
should allocate bursary to all the deserving students irrespective of their gender, the
bursary committees should allocate bursaries even to the academically challenged students
since their poor performance might be as a result of absenteeism caused by lack of school
fees and politicians should not interfere with bursary allocation either directly or
indirectly. Further research should be conducted to establish the impact of constituency
bursary funds on student’s performance. A research should also be undertaken to establish
factors affecting management of constituency bursary funds. | en |
