The Influence Of Socio-Physical Environment On The Quality Of Secondary Education In Mfangano Island In Mbita District, Homabay County, Kenya

ABSTRACT

The study examined the influence of socio-physical environment on the quality of secondary education in Mfangano Island, Mbita District in Homa Bay County. The objectives were to investigate the influence of Lake Victoria on accessibility to learning institutions, to find out landscape factors influencing curriculum implementation, to determine the contribution of religious institutions on the quality of secondary education and to identify the contribution of home-school partnership to quality secondary education in Mfangano. The study used the Classical Liberal Theory and employed descriptive survey research design. The target population was 2,544 people. A sample size of 346 people was investigated. One hundred and sixty-three parents, twenty teachers and one hundred and sixty-three students participated. Interviews, observation guidelines and questionnaires were used to collect data. Reliability was determined using test retest procedure. Validity was tested through piloting on small school and expert advice from the supervisors. Secondary data was collected from documents in schools and Education offices. Primary data was gathered from the field. The data from the questionnaires was edited, coded and broken down with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences to generate descriptive statistics. Data presentation and interpretation was done using line graphs, bar graphs, tables, and pie-charts. The main findings were that access to schools is affected by Lake Victoria, landscape has shaped the frequency and access to schools, religious support has been available with the Seventh Day Adventist Church dominating. Parental support to schools has been lukewarm. It was concluded that denominational conflicts in schools had interfered with fair access to education and curriculum implementation. The challenge of school drop outs, orphaned learners and terminally sick students and parents owing to socio- economic activities along the lakeshore had impacted negatively on education. There was need to strengthen parental roles in access to education and curriculum implementation. Inaccessibility to secondary schools owing to the ragged landscape, and great distances covered to reach the secondary schools, had impeded meaningful access to education and quality curriculum implementation. Therefore a general rescue plan was needed for this disadvantaged environment. Based on the findings, it is suggested that further research should study areas such as the availability of learning /teaching resources and the quality of school management, for they are also influenced by the environment. This has not been adequately studied by this research.