Relationship between Mothers’ Socio–Economic Engagement and Preprimary School Pupils’ Participation in Learning in Kilifi South Sub-County, Kilifi County, Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to establish the relationship between mothers’ socio-economic engagement and pre-primary school children’s school participation in learning in pre-school units under public elementary schools found in Kilifi South Sub-county of Kilifi County, Kenya. There has been underlying problem in Kilifi County that the research study sought to look into; that despite the remarkable increase of mothers in socio- economic activities in the county, little had been done to analyze the reason as to why the pre-school children’s school participation in learning was still very low. The investigation also looked into the influence of mothers’ income and occupation, level of mothers’ education and their attitude towards preschool children’s school participation in learning. Importance of investing in early years of children and how it relates to children’s school participation was also looked into. The rationale of this study was to shed dipper light and increase greater understanding on the influence of mothers’ socio- economic engagement on pre-school children to as many stakeholders of pre-school education as possible. The study adopted a descriptive survey design with a sample of 195 children, 23 teachers, and 11 mothers’ representatives on board. Questionnaires were used to gather information from pre-school teachers, observation schedules from children while interview schedules were employed to assemble information from socio-economic engaged mothers. Thematic techniques were used to manage qualitative data from questionnaires after the data had been analyzed through statistics. Target population of this study were mothers’ representatives, pre-school teachers and children in Kilifi County. With regard to the first objective, the study findings disclosed that there was a significant positive correlation between mother’s occupation and income level and children’s school participation in Kilifi County. A significant positive correlation between mothers’ level of education and children’s school participation in learning in the county was also shown by the study. Findings also showed that there was a significance positive correlation between mothers attitude towards educational and school participation in Kilifi County. Lastly, study outcomes at the same time established that mothers’ awareness of the significance of the early years enhances children school participation in Kilifi South of Kilifi County.