Cost Effective Measures to Reduce Operational Costs of Secondary Education: A Case Study of Nyando District in Kenya

Abstract

Through the cost sharing strategy, fees paid by parents are used to finance the day-to-day operations of secondary schools in Kenya while the government uses over eighty per cent of its recurrent expenditure on teachers’ salaries alone. However, there is a serious shortage of physical facilities that are essential for increased access and quality of secondary education. In addition, there is a high dropout rate, low enrolment ratio and general low performance in secondary schools. A high fee charged by the schools is the major reason for these problems. This study was, therefore, interested in examining the cost effective measures necessary to reduce operational costs of secondary education. Unit expenditure on supplementary services had the lowest correlation coefficient of 0.410 with KCSE mean score at 0.05 significance level in a two-tailed test and a positive coefficient of 0.00013 in the regression equation. Given that the effect of unit expenditure on supplementary services on quality is not much as shown by the district’s continued low KCSE mean score, it may be necessary to reduce this cost to improve access. The main focus here is to improve access if the quality remains static. This could be done by examining the impact of auditing on cost reduction, government subsidy of tuition on access to secondary education and the effect of reducing charges on supplementary services on performance at the secondary school level.