Abstract:
One of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of education is to ensure that by the year 2015, children everywhere that is boys and girls alike, will be able to complete their primary education. However, with an estimated net primary school enrollment rate (NER) of 92.5%, completion rate of 79.5% and drop-out rate of 3.5%, Kenya has not yet achieved full access to Universal Primary Education (UPE) for school going-age children. This study sought to establish the influence of pupils' parental economic background, pupils' community culture and pupils' parental level of education on access to Primary Education (PE) in Masimba Division, Masaba South District Kisii County of Kenya. The study adopted the descriptive survey design. The target population was 405 teachers and 16059 pupils in all public primary schools in Masimba Division. Stratified random sampling was used to select the subjects for the study who comprised of 150 teachers and 361 pupils from 36 selected public primary schools. Two instruments namely; Teacher's Questionnaire (TQ) and pupil's Questionnaire (PQ) developed by the researcher were used to collect data. The research instruments were pilot tested in two randomly selected public primary schools. Pre-testing the instruments was meant to validate and estimate their reliability in collecting the anticipated data. The questionnaires were further validated through review by four lecturers in the department of curriculum and instruction, Egerton University. The reliability indices for the instruments, these are teachers' and pupils' questionnaires were 0.81 and 0.76 respectively. The data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics which include frequencies, Percentages and Means. The findings of the study indicated that pupil's economic background, pupils' community culture and pupil's parental level of education influence access to primary education. The study has recommended that the FPE policy need to be backed by clear details on key points such as 'what free entails', this has left a vacuum that is interpreted differently in different primary schools. Parents should also be sensitized during class conferences and annual general meetings on the value of education and discourage cultural practices that hinder pupil's access to primary education. Adult literacy programme need also to be attached to every primary school in the division with the aim of getting parents aware of their role in pupil's access to PE.
