IMPACT OF SCHOOL LOCATION ON ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF SCIENCE SUBJECTS IN KCSE; A CASE OF RURAL AND UBARN SCHOOLS IN HOMABAY SUB COUNTY IN HOMABAY COUNTY.
Abstract
This study sought to investigate the impact that location of a school has on the performance of learners in science subjects in KCSE. Research conducted by the embassy of the republic of Kenya Washington showed that there are approximately 3,000 secondary schools in Kenya. These schools are distributed all over the country with some being located on the rural areas of Kenya while others are located on the urban areas of Kenya. Science subjects are taught in all these schools whether rural or urban. This study was based on the following objectives: to; Find out whether the availability of trained teachers in the rural and urban schools have effect on science performance in K.C.S.E., Determine whether availability of good infrastructure cause effect on science performance in rural and urban schools and find out whether variations in the attitudes of learners in rural and urban students have effect on their performance in science. This research was carried out in a few schools in Homabay Sub County. Four schools were selected, two from urban and two from rural areas with the research design being a case study. The sample size was a total of 184 respondents consisting of teachers and students. Questionnaires were used as the research tools to collect information from the respondents. The questionnaires were later analyzed, Tabulated and formatting done for the purposes of coding and putting them in form of tables using the descriptive and inferential statistics. From the findings it was seen that majority of the students in the urban located schools found it easy to study their science subjects and the teachers in those selected urban schools were all trained and this was unlike the counterparts in the rural located schools. Regarding the attitudes of the students towards science subjects, it was realized that majority of the respondents from urban located schools had good attitude while those from rural located schools had negative attitude. A significant majority of the respondents in the urban located schools indicated that their performance in the science subjects were well because majority of them agreed that the facilities such as laboratories, libraries, electricity and even good roads leading to their schools were adequate. On the contrary, rural located schools lacked those facilities as was shown by the respondents. In conclusion, it was found out that science subjects were well performed in urban located schools better than the rural located schools.
Publisher
UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI
Collections
- Faculty of Education (FEd) [6015]