Abstract:
It certainly is no secret that occupational success is related to educational performance. Those with college and university education generally get the best jobs hence wealth, prestige and at times power. In many parts of the world, progress from one level of education to the other is determined by performance of a national examination. In Kenya, Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education exam determines who is to join University or college by attaining grade C for colleges and C+ for universities. The government, through the Ministry Of Education, Science and Teclmology has put in place initiatives to improve educational performance by students. But the quality of education in many secondary schools is characterised by poor academic performance as portrayed by KCSE results. Majority of schools in Makuyu Division are faced with this problem. The purpose of this research was to identify the social, family, and economic factors that lead to poor academic perfonnance in schools in Makuyu Division of Murang’a South District. The study was a descriptive survey that employed the ex-postfacto design. The entire population of the students in the District was 23,701. The study targeted a population of l,l87 Form three students, 20 teacher— counselors and 20 class teachers. A sample of 4 schools was selected from the 20 schools in the Division using purposive sampling procedure. Student respondents from each sampled single-gender schools were selected by simple random sampling while those from the mixed-gender ones were selected through stratified random sampling. The sample thus included 303 students, 6 class teachers and 4 teacher counselors. Questionnaires were used to obtain data from the respondents. They were pilot- tested and their reliability ascertained at 0.751 and 0.732 respectively. Data was analysed using frequencies and percentages with the aid of a Computer-Based Statistical Package for Social Sciences. The key findings of the study indicated that the social and family factors that negatively influence performance in secondary schools are inter-student relationships, adolescence, indiscipline, parental education, cultural gangs and traditional brews while economic variables include scarce learning resources, low family income, teacher remuneration and lack of counselling in schools. From the findings, the study recommends that the Teachers Service Commission posts trained Guidance & Counselling masters in schools. Educationists should sensitize the parents to facilitate their children’s education. Also, the government should increase funds to schools to establish adequate physical resources and acquire leaming resources. Finally, the TSC should motivate teachers by paying them well and promoting them when they deserve it.
