Socio-economic determinants of students dropout rate during COVID-19 pandemic times in public secondary schools in Lower Yatta-Sub County, Kitui County, Kenya.

Abstract

To contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic schools in Kenya just as in many other countries worldwide, educational institutions had to close temporarily. This study sought to examine the socio-economic determinants of students' dropout rate during COVID-19 pandemic times in public secondary schools in Lower Yatta-Sub County, Kitui County, Kenya. The study examined the influence of COVID-19 protocols, household income, peer pressure and parental level of education on students' dropout rate over the period of COVID-19 pandemic. The study adopted an ex post facto survey research design. The target population for the study constituted 28 principals and 247 teachers in public secondary schools in Lower Yatta Sub-county. Census was used to pick all the 25 principals as sample. A sample of 153 teachers was used in the study. Proportionate technique was used to determine the number of teachers to be included in the study in each school. Fish bowl sampling method was used to identify the specific teachers to be interviewed in each school. Both Qualitative as well as quantitative data were collected from the respondents’ using questionnaires. Piloting was done in three schools within the sub-county in order to ascertain the face validity of research instruments while content validity was done through expert judgement by university supervisors. A test re-test technique was used to assess the reliability of the research instruments. Pearson’s product moment correlation was employed to compute the correlation coefficient. Data was analyzed with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26 and involved descriptive statistical procedures for quantitative data and content analysis for qualitative data where data was transcribed into themes and reported in narratives. The analyzed data was presented using frequency distribution Tables, tabulation Tables, percentages. The findings of the study will be significant to education sector and stakeholders; principals, teachers, parents and students in the overall awareness and response measures for unforeseen pandemics and calamities such as COVID-19. The results and findings of the research were; The Pearson’s Product Correlation Co-efficient for teachers and principals indicated a positive relationship with r (150) = 0.640, p<0.05 and r (25) = 0.624, p<0.05 respectively between COVID-19 protocols and students' dropout rate, there is a strong positive relationship r (25) = 0.678, p<0.05 between household income and student’s dropout rate and there is a strong positive relationship r (25) = 0.721, p<0.05 between parental level of education and student’s dropout rate.