Factors influencing the quality of academic education in pre-primary schools in lower Yatta District, Kitui county, Kenya
Abstract
The purpose of this study
was
to investigate the factors that influence the
quality
of
Academic
education
in
Pre
-
primary
schools
in
Lower Yatta
District
. The study
sought
to
determine the
influence of availability of Teaching /
Learning resources
on t
he quality
of
academic education
in
Pre
-
primary schools
, how the learning envir
onment influences the
quality
of
academic
education in
Pre
-
primary
schools and
the influence of teachers
‟
characteristics on the qualit
y of
academic education
in
Pre
-
primary
school
in
Lower
Yatta
District
. This study adopt
ed
both descriptive survey design and inferential statistics
on a sample of 125
pre
-
schools teachers, 125 head teachers, and 125 children in 125
public
pre
-
schools;
stratified
sampling
was
used to select th
e sample to be
included in the
study.
Both a
questionnaire and
checklist
were
used for data collecti
on. The collected
data was
analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics.
The study established
that From the findings of this study the resear
cher made the following conclusions. First,
majority of the schools had teaching and learning materials in their schools. These
included
activities, books
, puzzles, charts and flash cards and that there is significant
relationship between availability of
T
eaching
/L
earning
resources and the quality of
academic
education. This means the more the T
eaching
/L
earning
material the better the
quality of education. Secondly, there is significant relationship between learning
environment and the quality of academic
education in
Pre
-
primary schools. This means
that the learning environment gre
atly influences the quality of
academic
education
.
Finally, there is a significant relationship between teachers‟ characteristics and the quality
of academic education meaning th
e teacher characteristics affects the academic quality.
From the findings of this study the researcher recommended that
t
here is need for the
ministry of education
to
allocate
funds for funding
pre
-
school
T
eaching
/L
earning
materials. The school head teache
rs should improve the learning environment for their
schools so as to improve academic
education
, th
e DE
O
s office should organize in
-
service
trainings for
pre
-
school teachers so as to improve their teache
r
s characteristics
and
parents should be highly invo
lved in the learning activities of their children so as to
improve the quality of academic education
.
Collections
- Faculty of Education (FEd) [5964]