Abstract:
The Free Primary Education (FPE) programme was commissioned in January 2003 to provide basic education to all Kenyan children of school going age and to ease the burden of cost sharing from the parents. The public primary school class teachers were to shoulder the greatest responsibility in the implementation of this programme but the assessment of the success of this programme has not involved the class teachers who are the main stakeholders. The study therefore aimed at assessing the adequacy and quality of FPE based on the perceptions of the class and head teachers in public primary schools in Ndaragwa Division, Nyandarua County. The assessment of the programme was based on four aspects of the programme which included: the provision of teaching / learning materials, provision of physical facilities, provision of teachers, and the roles played by the School Management Committees. A survey was conducted to collect information from 130 class teachers and 23 head teachers who were purposively selected from 23 schools. A structured questionnaire consisting of 38-items was used to gauge the perceptions of the respondents on each item on a five point Likert scale (1=Very Inadequate to indicate lack of enough materials, 2=Inadequate, 3=moderately adequate, 4=Adequate and 5=Very Adequate, to indicate satisfactory levels of the materials). The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics for objective one to four (means and frequency distributions) and inferential statistics for objective five (t-test). This was done with the aid of the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS version 21). The results of the study revealed that there existed a variation in the adequacy and quality of the items provided by the FPE programme in Ndaragwa division. The quality of teaching and learning materials, physical facilities, and management committees was found to be Moderately Adequate, while that of the teachers was found to be Adequate. The adequacy of the teaching and learning materials, physical facilities, and management committees was found to beModerately Adequate, while that of the teachers was found to be Adequate. Significant differences (p≤ 05) were found between the class teachers and head teachers’ assessment of the adequacy of the learning and teaching resources, while no significant differences (p≥.05) were found in quality. Implementing the recommendations of this research could assist push the country closer to achieving Universal Education For All (UFA) by 2015 which is one of the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs).
