Influence of School Financial Requirements on Children Enrolment Rate of Pre-Primary Schools in Rwanda
Abstract
The challenge faced by the government of Rwanda is to ensure that children from poor households are not excluded from early childhood education and care institutions due to failure to contribute for school financial requirements. One key way of responding to this challenge is by obtaining accurate data on parents’ contributions in preprimary schools. The purpose of this paper therefore, was to identify the influence of school financial requirements on enrolment rate of preprimary schools in Rwamagana District in Rwanda. The research design was descriptive and multiple regression. Data collection tools were questionnaires. The target population was 338 including 28 preprimary school staff and 310 parents of 3-6 year olds in Musha Sector of Rwamagana district. From this population, simple random sampling and convenient sampling techniques were used to get 181 respondents. The study results revealed that in pre-primary schools of Rwamagana District, parents spend on average 66,626Frw annually per child which is about 60$. The major costs and school requirements are teacher salary, school uniform, school materials and school feeding program. The less common school requirements are child transport, school construction, school parties and salaries for support staff. The study found that children enrolled in pre-primary classrooms were slightly more than enough with a 3.53 point scale mean, but the majority of children aged 3-6 years old were already out of schools with a 4.10 point scale mean. This study recommended there should be the promotion of pre-primary education cost sharing between the government and the parents and to abolish unnecessary financial requirements in pre-primary schools and also promote home based care centers. Parents should continue playing an active role in terms of management and funding of pre-primary schools. The government of Rwanda is recommended to increase its budget for pre-primary education funding especially in the rural districts because many poor households failed to contribute to teacher salaries and school construction.
Keywords: School financial requirement, Child, enrolment rate and Pre-primary schools
