Effects of parental financial status on preschool children’s attendance in Mukuru Kayaba slums Makadara subcounty, Nairobi county

Abstract

Pre-school education plays a key role in holistic development that leads to better foundation in child development. Despite the importance of investing in early childhood development, the level of education is grossly affected by the cost of implementing. As a result, parents are faced with the responsibility of financing the education of children besides busy economic schedules. This study focused on the effects of the levels of income of the parents and nature of employment as well as institutional factors on pre-school children’s school attendance in Mukuru Kayaba slums Makadara Sub County, Nairobi County. The study was guided by the sociocultural theory which explains the poor school attendance as a result of social surrounding of the learner. Both purposive and random sampling was used to sample 284 parents and children enrolled in 7 ECD centers in the study area. Both semi-structured interviews and key informant interviews were used to interview the parents, teachers, head teachers and education officer. Quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS version 22 while quantitative data was analyzed by MAXQDA version 12. Frequencies and percentages were used to summarize the data while chi squared test conducted to make inference on the relationship between the dependent and independent variables. Results indicate that economic status of the parents affect the pre-school attendance. Children whose parents had better economic status were more likely to attend school regularly (P<0.05). Similarly, children whose parents were formally employed were regular school attendees (P<0.05). Finally, the study established that institutional factors including the availability of teaching and learning materials as well as school infrastructure affected pre-school attendance(P<0.05). The study recommends economic empowerment for parents in order to deal with poor pre-school attendance in the study area.