| dc.description.abstract | Since independence in 1963, secondary education in Kenya has expanded rapidly despite the unending setbacks to its access. The government of Kenya has always endeavored to improve access to and retention of students in secondary schools but the problem of wastage through school dropouts has continued to persist. Education is a vital tool in the development of any nation. This study sought to establish the influence of free day secondary education in enhancing internal efficiency particularly the completion rates in public secondary schools in Mvita Subcounty, Mombasa. The factors investigated included cost of education (direct and indirect), parents economic activities, school characteristics including physical facilities, teacher resource, discipline, school type and category, family background which included parents‟ standard of living, and finally the parents‟ level of education in enhancing students‟ completion rates in public secondary in Mvita Subcounty. This study adopted a descriptive research design. The theoretical framework was based on systems theory of management. The sample sizes of this study were 12 head teachers, 64 teachers and 189 students. The study utilized questionnaires for the respondents to collect data. Reliability of the instrument was done by performing spearman‟s rank order correlation. The validity was done by conducting a pilot study on two schools that were not included in the study. Both qualitative and quantitative techniques were used to analyse data. The Statistical Packages for Social Scientists (SPSS) software package were utilized in analyzing data. The analyzed data was presented in frequency tables. The study was intended to benefit the policy makers in the ministry of education, other ministries, academic scholars, researchers and students. The findings showed that there is a high enrolment rate into secondary schools which is not consistency to reflect in completion rates due to a number of factors. The physical facilities in the schools are not adequate to allow easy learning. The schools are not further developed to meet the increasing demand by the learners of the secondary education. The schools do not have adequate instructional materials that affect the educational outcomes. The school funds are a major challenge as the research found out because parents are still expected to meet educational costs in spite of the subsidized education by free day secondary education by the government. The Kenyan government should increase funds to support the program to allow improved completion rates. The study suggested that similar study be carried out in other sub-counties for comparison purposes. | en_US |
