| dc.description.abstract | Retention in school has positive consequences for individuals throughout their
lives. In an economy where education largely determines pay and occupation,
high school drop outs hold a disadvantaged position. The purpose of this study
was to investigate the institutional factors affecting pupils’ retention in public
primary schools in Nakuru North District, Kenya. The specific objectives were to
establish the influence of teacher’s attitude, teaching and learning resources,
physical resources and teacher pupil ratio on pupils’ retention in public primary
schools in Nakuru North District, Kenya. The study was guided by expectant
theory advocated by Vroom. The study targeted 41 public primary schools with a
population of 877 teachers and 41 head teachers. This gave a target population of
918 respondents. The study sampled 87 teachers and 12 head teachers. The total
sample size was 99 respondents. Simple random sampling procedure was used to
select at least 10% of the total number of teachers. Questionnaires for teachers
and interview schedules for head teachers were used for data collection.
Reliability testing was done through test-retest method. Pearson’s product
moment’s correlation was used to test reliability. Validity was ensured through
discussion with the experts including supervisors and colleagues. Primary data
was collected and analyzed using quantitative and qualitative analysis and
presented in tables and graphs. Secondary data was obtained from journals and
schools data base. Data collected was analyzed using Statistical Package for
Social Sciences (SPSS). Descriptive statistics and thematic statistics were used to
analyze open ended responses. This assisted in determining the level of influence
the independent variables had on the dependent variable. The study found out that
teacher pupil ratio influences pupils retention. Lack of teachers in their school
makes the learning process less fun and tiresome and this to some extent affects
the retention. The schools have a teacher pupil ratio of 1:50 which is not the
required ratio for a school. Inadequacy has made teachers performance not good
hence some preferring to move to private schools. The poor ratio of teachers to
pupils has contributed to some pupils moving to other schools. Some of the
available teachers in the school aren’t adequately trained and this contributes to
the transfer of some pupils to other schools. Availability of teachers affect the
retention of pupils in the school to a great extent. The findings on the influence of
teaching and learning resources on pupils retention indicated that school have a
teaching/learning resources and pupils ratio of 1:4 which is inadequate for proper
learning and affects negatively pupils’ retention. The ratio of learning materials to
pupils is poor and influences retention of pupils in the school. Students leave
school because they are not able to get the necessary learning resources in the
school. It was found out that teachers’ attitude affect the management of school
resources which in turn affects the retention of pupils. The MoE and TSC should
employ more teachers to enhance the teacher pupils’ ratio in primary schools.
There should be a research on other factors affecting pupils’ retention in primary
schools since this study only focused on four institutional factors. | en_US |
