Impact Of Bursary Award On The Internal Efficiency Of Secondary Schools In Gucha District, Kisii County, Kenya

ABSTRACT

Internal efficiency in the provision of education is the aim of stakeholders such as the government, parents and students, indicators of efficiency can be used to measure effectiveness of schools. In achieving institutional and national goals. Whereas it is central to government policy, head teachers to put in place ways of promoting internal efficiency and reducing factors or conditions that contributing to inefficiency. Thus the problem of the study was to try and assess the impact of bursary on internal efficiency in secondary schools. The study employed descriptive design and location of the study was Gucha District. The target population was public secondary schools. The study employed instruments such as questionnaire, oral interview and document analysis. While validity of the instrument involved piloting them in one of the school and reliability determined by Test re-test and correlation coefficient of 0.71 was accepted. Data analysis was done using percentages, thematic analysis and reporting was done using graphical representation such as charts and percentage tables. The study found out that the role of administration was minimal and insignificant in selection of the needy, the number of applicants are usually more and hence not adequate and even those awarded can not meet their financial needs, the management of bursary by constituency committee is overridden with a number of negative influences such as nepotism and political inclination that makes them to be considered as fair, the existing bursary committee entrusted with management of this kitty has weakness affecting the performance of its duty more so identification, award and disbursement of the bursary which is always delayed, although Kenya National Union of Teachers and Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association are members of the bursary committee to oversee fairness, Monitoring, evaluation and follow ups. They have not been effective to enhance participation of needy in secondary education and that Ministry of Education guidelines used by the committee were found to be widespread to take care of all those deemed needy and vulnerable with funds for support from the kitty. However, the selection is more intricate and amount given being varied means certain needy students may not benefit from the bursary investment in education by government, hence denying them the right opportunities to access education and complete the secondary cycle. Based on the findings of this study, the researcher recommended that proper criterion and guidelines should be put in place to ensure that only needy and vulnerable benefit from the bursary kitty, selection and identification of needy and vulnerable should be transparent hence a good reason to involve headteachers and class teachers as they are able to provide accurate information other than mere recommendation, schools be encouraged through BoG to start income generating activities in order to supplement what is provided by the government for supporting the needy and vulnerable groups and that further study be carried on whether management of the bursary should be reverted to schools directly from constituency bursary committees.