Abstract:
Secondary school education prepares the students for several opportunities such as admission
into university, vocational training or direct employment. Secondary school education is also
expected to facilitate the achievement of national unity, good citizenship, providing equal
opportunities to individuals, promotion and development of culture and promotion of
intemational consciousness. Secondary school leavers have thus been expected to contribute
to the social, cultural and economic development of the country in a very major way. The
transition rate from primary school to secondary school in Kenya is only 55%. This calls for
an investigation into the possible causes of this low transition rate from primary school to
secondary school, so that appropriate measures can be taken to increase it. This study
investigated the relationship between income, level of education and gender of household
head and access to secondary school education by students in Mbeere district. This study
adopted an ex — post facto research design. One piloted questionnaire and an interview
schedule were used to collect data fiom 379 household heads selected purposefully from
37,036 households in Mbeere district. Pilot testing of the instruments was carried out in
Karaba location in Mbeere district that was not taking part in the main study. Experts from
the faculty of education and community studies Egerton university validated the instruments.
Reliability was established using the spilt - half technique. A reliability of 0.732 was obtained
and considered acceptable. Quantitative data were analyzed using statistical package for
social sciences (SPSS) version 20. Hypotheses were tested using chi-square at or level of 0.05.
The study found out that there is no relationship between income, level of education and
gender of the household head and access to secondary school education. ‘Miraa’ trade was
found to be the major reasons Why some of the class eight graduates did not join secondary
school. The findings of the study will provide useful information to policy makers at Ministry
of Education (MOE), Non Governmental Organization (NGO), Churches and District
Education Board (DEB) in Mbeere district on how to increase access to secondary school
education in the district.
