The Status Of Private Tuition In Public Secondary Schools In Miirigamieru West Division, Imenti North District

ABSTRACT

Despite the repeated banning of private tuition by the Ministry of Education in Kenya, the practice of private tuition has been on the increase. This calls for an investigation into the status and the reasons for the existence of the practice of private tuition despite the ban. The purpose of the study was to investigate the status of private tuition in public secondary schools in Miirigamweru West Division, Imenti North District. The study aimed at achieving the following specific objectives: to establish the extent of the practice of private tuition in public secondary schools in the division, to find out the forms private tuition takes in public secondary schools in the division, to determine the perception of stakeholders (students, teachers and parents) on private tuition in public secondary schools in the division and to establish why the ban on private tuition has not been 100% successful in public secondary schools in the division. Descriptive survey design was used for the study. Eight schools (representing 40% of the schools) were used for this study. Simple random sampling technique was used to sample 8 schools for the study. A total of 192 respondents were sampled for the study. This constituted 8 principals, 40 teachers, 128 students and 16 parents. Out of the targeted sample, a total of 171 responded (121 students, 30 teachers, 8 principals and 12 parents) giving a response rate of 89%. Systematic random sampling technique was used to sample student respondents for the study while a simple random sampling technique was used to sample teacher respondents. Purposive sampling technique was used to sample parents for the study. Questionnaires and interview schedules were used as instruments for data collection. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyze the data. Descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviations were used to describe the data. The analyzed data were presented in the form of pie charts, bar graphs and tables where necessary. The study found that private tuition is practiced in the schools studied. This was evidenced by the fact that private tuition was made compulsory as mentioned by 91.7 % of the parents interviewed. The study also found that the forms of private tuition prevalent are those offered in the evening, during the weekends and those offered during school holidays. Regarding the perception of private tuition by stakeholders, it was found that most teachers (26, 86.7%) and the students (100, 82.6%) wanted private tuition to continue being offered by their schools. The major reason for the failure of the ban was that the curriculum was overloaded and therefore there was need for extra time to cover the syllabus adequately. Other reasons included: increased competition for limited opportunities in institutions of higher learning and the fact that private tuition improved the performance of students. It was concluded that there was the prevalence of private tuition in the division and most of the tuition offered in the schools is compulsory. The respondents recommended that the practice of private tuition should be continued in secondary schools. On the contrary, the researcher recommends that the government should reinforce the policy on the ban to ensure its effectiveness. Another study should be done in other districts to find out the relationship between the prevalence of private tuition and the improvement of academic performance in national examinations.