Influence of constituency development fund on access, equity and quality of secondary education in public schools in Kisumu County, Kenya

Fund (CDF) in order to promote access, equity and enhance quality of education in secondary schools. Countries all over the world use devolved funding to finance education in terms of construction of schools, paying school fees for the needy through bursary and developing school infrastructure. Studies in United States of America, United Kingdom, South-Africa and Malawi have revealed that devolved funding has been used to enhance access, equity and quality of education. However, access, equity and quality of secondary education have caused concern within some parts of Sub-Saharan Africa due to rising costs in education. In 2003, the government of Kenya adopted devolved system of funding of education through the Constituency Development Public secondary schools in Kisumu County receive money from the CDF but statistics show that access, equity and quality is low. Gross Enrolment Rate (GER) was at 35% lower than the national one which stood at 48.8%. The county’s GPI was 49.9% lower than the national GPI which was 60.5% while student mean performance in KCSE was 5.63 in the year 2012, lower than the National one which was 6.1 in the same year. Moreover, most schools still lacked good physical facilities. Hitherto, the influence of CDF on access, equity and quality of secondary education was not known and this therefore warranted an investigation. The purpose of this study was to establish the influence of CDF on access, equity and quality of secondary education in public schools in Kisumu County. The objectives of the study were to; establish the influence of CDF on access to secondary education; determine the influence of CDF on equity in secondary education and to establish the influence of CDF on quality of secondary education in public schools in Kisumu County. The study was guided by the theory of Socialist Economics of Education from which a conceptual framework was derived stating that when money is redistributed from the rich to the poor it creates equality. Ex post facto, descriptive survey and co-relational research designs guided the study. The target population comprised 220 public secondary school principals, 13386 form four students, 7 CDF Managers and 7 Sub-County Quality Assurance and Standards Officers (SCQASOs). Simple random sampling was used to select 140 secondary school principals and 384 students from the sampled schools using Krejcie and Morgan method for calculating sample size. Saturated sampling was used to sample 7 SCQASOs and 7 CDF Accounts Managers. Primary data was collected using questionnaires on student enrolment, gender parity, economic status of their parents, number of CDF schools, classrooms and other facilities, amount of CDF funds received and the number of bursary recipients between 2009 and 2013. Secondary data was obtained using document analysis on KCSE results from 2009 to 2013. Qualitative data was obtained by interviewing the SCQASOs, CDF Accounts Managers and Form Four students. Reliability was determined by test re-test method while content validity was determined by two experts from the school of education. Quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics and Lorenze curve while Qualitative data was transcribed and analyzed in emergent themes. It was established that CDF improved access by 6.2% as signified by adjusted R2 coefficient .062. CDF had a negative influence on equity as Pearsons r coefficient was -.024 and reduced equity by .8% as signified by adjusted R2 coefficient -.008. The Gini coefficient found was .0367, higher than the accepted 0.35 and it confirmed that CDF bursary awarded to students in public secondary schools in Kisumu County was highly inequitable.CDF enhanced quality by31.1% as signified by adjusted R2 coefficient .311. The study concluded that CDF had a slight influence on access and quality of secondary education while on equity, the influence was negative. The study recommended that the government should allocate more funds to schools for infrastructure to improve on access and also award more bursaries to needy students to improve on quality. Fund Managers should take into account gender parity when awarding bursary to needy students in order to enhance equity. The study is significant because it may provide useful information to planners, educationists and other stakeholders on the sustainability of CDF and uplift secondary education standards in Kisumu County.