| dc.description.abstract | Repetition has severe negative consequences to both the individuals and society in terms of economic, social, political and psychological dimensions. Alego Usonga Sub County, Siaya County has a high repetition rate of 7.10% against 1% nationally. The purpose of the study was to establish effects of class repetition on pupils’ academic performance in primary schools in Kenya, and particularly to: examine how class repetition affects learner academic achievements, asses the effects of schools resources on academic performance of learners, and to explore strategies put in place to reduce grade repetition of learners in public primary schools. The high repetition rate was argued to improve academic performance by exposing low performing students to additional teaching time and allowing them to catch up on the curriculum and content of teaching. Equally repetition on the other side was argued to be counterproductive on student long term academic achievements with retained students falling further and further behind promoted peers and sometimes leading to drop outs. Conceptual framework was used in the study to help focus on the effects of repetition on pupils academic performance in primary schools in the Alego Usonga Sub County. The study adopted descriptive survey design. The study was carried out in public primary schools in Alego Usonga Sub County, Siaya County, Kenya. The population of the study comprised of 139 class teachers, 139 primary head teachers, Sub County Director of Education (SCDE), 7 Curriculum Support Officers (CSOs) and 695 repeaters. The study adopted simple random sampling technique and applied the rule of thumb to select 28 public primary schools to form part of the sample and to select 139 repeaters from the population of 695 repeaters to form the sample. Stratified random sampling was then used to select 28 head teachers, 28 class teachers, while saturated sampling was used to allow all the CSOs and SCDE to form part of the study. The instruments of data collections were questionnaires, documents analysis and interview schedules. Pilot was done in 5 schools using test re test method, a correlation coefficient of 0.857 was obtained for questionnaires reliability after administering two different but alternative forms of the questionnaires constructed to sample the same content to the respondents in pilot schools at the same time. Validity of the instruments were ascertained by the Supervisor from the Department of educational foundations of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology. Quantitative data collected using close ended items in the Questionnaires, were analyzed using descriptive statistics like frequencies and percentages while qualitative data were analyzed as themes and Sub themes. The findings were presented in form of tables and graphs. The study found - 5 -out that repetition was prevalent in class 7 and had negative effects on academic performance of primary school pupils’. The study further found out that the main effects of class repetition on
pupils include: stigmatization, low self-esteem, school drop outs, over-age learners, low learning achievements, higher teacher to pupil ratio which contributes to constraints on school learning resources impacting negatively to learner’s academic performance. It was also found out that schools could employ improved teaching pedagogy and learning environments coupled with sensitization of teachers on Government policy on repetition to curb repetition in schools. Based on the study findings, the following were recommended: that the Government should put on more effort on the monitoring of educational quality through Sub County Quality Assurance and Standards Officer (SCQASO) and Curriculum Support Officers (CSOs) to check on the level of enforcement of the Government policy on repetition, the Teachers’ Service Commission should redistribute teachers based on enrollment in schools to address the high teacher pupil ratio, the Government should prioritize the improvement of basic learning institution resources including physical infrastructure, desks ,textbooks and lunch programs. The study further recommends that the guidance and counselling department in public primary schools should be enhanced to address the self confidence in learners and to encourage learners to love school and learning. The study was useful as it provided information to the Sub County Education office, parents, teachers and other stakeholders on effects of repetitions in primary schools in the Sub County | en_US |
