| dc.description.abstract | Despite the fact that the Kenyan government offers Free Primary Education, there
are still families that are not able to cater for the hidden costs of education like the
school uniform. Such children are sent home until they have the necessities needed
in the school. This lowers their participation rates. The purpose of the study was to
investigate the effects of hidden costs based on Human Capital Theory on
participation in public primary schools in Nyeri Municipality. The study was
guided by the following objectives: to establish the types of hidden costs affecting
participation in public primary schools in Nyeri Municipality; to determine how
flow of revenues from school levies affect the supply of learning resources in
public primary schools in Nyeri Municipality; to establish how lunch expenses
affect participation in public primary schools in Nyeri Municipality and to find out
if hidden costs of education in public primary schools in Nyeri Municiality cause
child labour. This study was conducted using the descriptive survey research
method. The target population for this study was the public primary schools in
Nyeri Municipality. The study used simple random sampling. This study used
questionnaires for teachers, interview schedule for parents and focus group
discussions for learners as the tools of data collection. Descriptive statistics were
used for data analysis and the results were presented using tables.
The study found that despite public primary education being free, there are still
costs that parents pay for such as remedial classes, books, uniforms, stationery,
school activities such as sports and clubs, development funds, educational tours,
examination fees and watchman’s fees, PTA fees and BOG teachers' salaries. In
relation to learning resources, it was noted that FPE contributes to scarcity of
learning resources because they are inadequate and have late deliveries.
Resultantly, pupils skip school and engage in child labour to afford them pay for
such thus affecting participation of pupils in public primary schools. Regarding
lunch expenses, majority of the schools lack free feeding programme and the ones
with such are paid for by the parents. Lunch expenses were found to affect pupils’
participation to a great extent. This is because learners who cannot afford food
remain at home and engage in child labour in order to afford lunch. In relation to
child labour, it was found to affect pupils’ participation to a great extent. Lunch and
uniforms were the mostly mentioned hidden costs which make learners engage in
child labour and therefore affect participation of pupils negatively. Based on the
findings of the study, the researcher recommended that the government should
increase the level of subsidies that the government should deliver learning
resources in time and they should be adequate to avoid disrupting learning and that
the government should provide free school feeding programmes so that all the
pupils can benefit. This would reduce cases of child labour and it would improve
performance. The researcher suggested that a similar study should be done in other
regions in Kenya. | en |
