Abstract:
The Government of Kenya has sought to address the challenges facing the education of the girl child through a range of policy initiatives. The introduction of the re-entry policy in the mid 1990’s for instance was initiated to address the high drop out rate among the girls. In spite of such policies, 10,000 to 13, 0000 girls are estimated to drop out of school annually due to pregnancy alone. Furthermore, all these efforts that support girl child education are devoid of a parent’s participation who is a key stakeholder in the education of a child. Parent participation in Kenyan schools is still low and seems to be restricted to the provision of finances and basic facilities and serving on mandated school-parent bodies. The purpose of the study was to examine the barriers to effective parental participation in re-admission of teenage mothers in secondary schools in Wareng’ Sub-county. The specific objectives of the study were to: investigate the student-based factors that inhibit parental participation, examine household factors that hinder parental participation and find out school-based factors that influence parental participation in the re-admission process of teenage mothers in sub-county public secondary schools. The study was embedded on Albert Bandura’s Self Efficacy Theory and Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler (1997) Model of Parental Involvement. Data from teenage mothers and other targeted groups were obtained in a descriptive survey design through questionnaires for head teachers and interviews for teenage mothers and their parents. The sample was made up of 74 respondents with 23 teenage mothers, 23 parents of the teenage mothers and 28 head teachers. The study employed saturation sampling technique to select the 28 head teachers who are the major decision makers in teenage mother re-admission. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques were used to enable the selection of both the girls who had recently dropped out of school and their parents in Wareng’ Sub-county. Data were organized and analyzed in tables and percentages and discussed under various themes. The study findings revealed that barriers to parental participation were teenage mothers’ unwillingness to return to school, the schools’ failure to adequately sensitize parents of teenage mothers and lack of follow up on teenage mothers who were at home. Parents’ attributes such as age, education levels, socio-economic status, negative attitude towards the girl child and parents’ health status significantly influenced parental participation in teenage mother education. The study recommends deliberate actions by head teachers to involve parents of the girl from the time a pregnancy is detected by having frequent counseling sessions for the girl and also the parent. Head teachers should also consider setting up gender responsive guidance and counseling programs that target teenage mothers so as to support them from the time they are spotted through the time they will be released to go home. This should make teenage mothers feel accepted and build a high self-esteem that should make them want to come back to school after the delivery of a baby. The Ministry of Education should inform head teachers on the Re-entry policy and highlight on the role of parents in the re-admission process. These recommendations will help in developing policies geared towards active parental involvement in girls’ education.
