Influence of Public Awareness of County Bursary Fund Allocation on Retention of Needy Secondary School Students in Baringo County, Kenya

Abstract

The objective of the study is to examine the extent to which public awareness on County bursary fund allocation has influenced the retention of needy students in secondary school. The study employed survey design in the collection of data. A study sample of 133 respondents was engaged in from a total population of 6,093 obtained from a stratified random sampling technique. The questionnaire was the method of data collection used to gather the Primary data. The questionnaires were coded and edited for completeness and consistency. They were further processed by utilising statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) program. The analysis procedure included inferential examination and descriptive statistics. The descriptive analysis method provided the sample data in quantitative form, which ended in producing mean and standard deviation. The study established the relationship between dependent and independent variables by conducting regression analysis, which found out that the P-values of awareness of county bursary fund, was 0.001, which is less than 0.05 significance level; this implies that variable is significant. The study concludes that communication through the public participation forum, posters, radio social media was detailed enough to make the application and submission easy for the applicants. The study recommends that more awareness campaign should be enhanced using varies forms of communication. Still, posters and notices should be prioritised as they scored the highest value of 43.4 % as compared to other communication media. The researcher also concluded that the fund retained needy students in secondary school with 61.1% of the interviewed school principals, 65.9% of the bursary applicants and 80% of the bursary committee secretaries agreeing.