Effects of Poverty On School Dropout in Primary Schools in Kamukunji Division Naffiobi (Kenya)

CHAPTER ONE 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY Poverty is seen as the most important phenomena leading to school drop out. Poverty according to Encyclopedia Britannia, it can be defined as the condition that is said to exist when people lack the means to satisfy their basic needs of which includes clothing, shelter, food and medicine. Countries world over have experienced poverty for along period which has affected the people's standards ofliving. In America for example, poverty was not commonly defined as a problem till recently Gallup Poll showed that poverty was seen as a problem in American Republic in 1965, and it spread to other countries. (Lauer 1976) As president of Uganda Y. Kaguta Museveni 2003 asserts that; "Poverty in Uganda, during the l 990's income poverty fell dramatically. However since 2000, income poverty has risen with a proportion of people below the poverty line rising form 34% in 2000 to 38% in 2003. This has been accompanied by income in equality which has been rising since 1997" On the other hand, school drop out is the state where students/ pupils leave schooling before achieving their goals due to a problem of poverty and other related factors. How does poverty lead to school drop out? In this case, funding and costs lead to school drop out due to inadequate financial resources as a result of poverty even though he/she is quite capable of doing the work since the mid 1960s less money has been available for students loan and scholarship while the cost of attending college has raised rapidly than most other costs. Perhaps the factor of poverty as the cause of poor performance and school drop out due to lack of school fees and children often sent back home to collect school gees during the time of school. They end up loosing studies, perform poorly in their examination and even fail to raise the amount of fee required in time and end up dropping out of school.