Public Secondary Schools Expansion And Its Impact On Education Quality In Kaloleni District, Kilifi County, Kenya

ABSTRACT

Provision of education for all is a major priority of all governments especially in the developing nations. Expansion of educational places has therefore taken the centre stage of many governments‟ efforts to try and meet the ever increasing demand for education. This has been so especially for the secondary education sub-sector where much prominence has been placed. The broad aim of the study was to find out the impact of the rapid expansion in provision of public secondary education on quality learning in Kaloleni District. It took a special focus on the public secondary schools in the district and assessed the standards to which they are operating. The objectives of the study were to establish availability of infrastructure and their impact on provision of quality education; to establish the availability of trained teachers and its influence on provision of quality education; to assess the extent to which rapid expansion of public secondary education was hindering provision of quality education in the schools; to analyze the performance of public secondary schools in provision of quality education and to find out ways of improving the quality of education in the public secondary schools in the District. The study used a descriptive survey technique in its undertaking. This technique was important as it is mostly suited for a quantitative research on education issues. It used a non-probability purposeful sampling technique and simple stratified sampling to get the respondents to the research instruments. A sample of 42 teachers was chosen from a population of 137 teachers, six principals and three education officials. Data was collected using questionnaires for teachers and interviews for principal and education officers. Quantitative data was summarized into frequency distributions, measures of central tendencies (mean) and measures of dispersion (standard deviation and range). The qualitative data was then analyzed using the thematic analysis and SPSS for making meaningful conclusions and recommendations from the study. The analyzed data was presented using tables and charts. According to the findings of the study expansion of public secondary education in Kaloleni District was not guarantying quality learning in the schools. It was therefore, imperative that a thorough assessment should be done before establishing new public secondary schools in the district and also the government should try and improve the conditions under which the already existing public secondary schools are operating