Teachers and students perception on effect of extra tuition on academic performance in public secondary schools in Machakos County, Kenya

Abstract

The practice of extra tuition is a phenomenon which has prevailed in Kenyan secondary schools despite the repeated ban by the government. The purpose of the study was to establish the perceived effect of extra tuition by teachers and students on academic performance in public secondary schools in Machakos County, Kenya. Descriptive survey design was used for the study. The target population was all public secondary schools’ teachers and students in Machakos County. Ten (10) schools were randomly sampled and a total of 200 respondents including 40 teachers and 160 students participated. Questionnaires were used for data collection. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyze the data. The null hypothesis was tested using the t-test for independence of means at a 0.05 level of significance. Study findings were that extra tuition is widely practiced and that both students and teachers supported extra tuition. Some reasons advanced for the support were that extra tuition helps in early coverage of syllabus, revision, and boosts the performance of individual students. Observed t value indicated that perception scores of teachers and students were t (198) = -0.767, p=0.444. This means that there was no significant difference between the perception scores of students and teachers concerning extra tuition on academic performance. The study recommends among others that there is need to reduce syllabus content to manageable levels.