Influence of selected Maasai cultural practices on internal efficiency in public secondary schools in Narok South Sub County Narok County Kenya

Abstract

Education forms the basis upon which economic, social and political development of any nation is founded. As a basic human right, it is universally proclaimed by many countries of the world. Despite the efforts made by the government and other stakeholders to achieve Education For All (EFA), there are challenges of dropouts, repetition and low transition rates. The study was carried out in Narok South Sub-County as it was reported to have cultural practices that affect internal efficiency in education. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of selected Maasai cultural practices specifically circumcision, early marriages, moranism and nomadic pastoralism on internal efficiency in public secondary schools. The selected indicators of internal efficiency were dropout‟s rates, repetition rates and transition rates. The researcher adopted the production function theory. Ex-post facto research design was used. The target population was 170 respondents comprising of (34) principals and (136) class secretaries in public secondary schools in Narok South Sub-County. Purposive sampling was used to select (31) principals while stratified sampling was used to select (124) class secretaries to form a sample size of 155. Data was collected using interview schedule for principals and questionnaire for the class secretaries. Reliability of the instruments was estimated using cronbach alpha coefficient formula and was found to be 0.81, indicating that they attained a reliability coefficient above the 0.7 threshold, thus deemed acceptable. The data collected was analysed using statistical package for social science. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse background information while inferential statistics (poison regression) was used to determine influence of selected Maasai cultural practices on internal efficiency. The level of significance was tested at alpha coefficient (α-level) equal to 0.05. Data was presented using frequency tables, pie charts and bar graphs. From the study results majority of the respondents were affected by cultural practices from the age of 10-24 years. Circumcision had a significant influence on repetition rates (P < 0.002), transition rates (P < 0.001) and dropout rates (P < 0.002). Early marriages had a significant influence on repetition rates (P < 0.0141), transition rates (P < 0.0080) and dropout rates (P < 0.0018). Moranism also had a significant influence on repetition rates (P < 0.020), transition rates (P < 0.003) and dropout rates (P < 0.002). Nomadic pastoralism had a significant influence on repetition rates (P < 0.000), transition rates (P < 0.002) and dropout rates (P < 0.008). All internal efficiency factors were influenced by the cultural practices. The study recommends the government and stakeholders to enhance internal efficiency by creating awareness to parents on the retrogressive cultural practices in Narok South Sub-County.