Education is a social, economic, cultural, civil and political right. Kenyan government spends a big percentage of resources on education. Despite this effort, however, the retention of girls in secondary education is low. Literacy remains a major impediment in the development and well-being of women UNESCO, 2007. In Africa, Kenya is one of the countries where school enrolment for girls at Primary School level is 50% of the total enrolment, but this decreases to below 40% as they ascend academic ladder to secondary level and further below 30% in tertiary level. Tawanda and Gordon, 2004 in their study established that gender disparity continues to persist in certain areas and that there are persistent constraints that continue to hinder girls from completing education at all levels. This is an indicator that concerted efforts should be put to help in promoting retention in order to achieve gender equality to access of secondary education for girls in Kenya.

In many cultural set-ups, the female child is treated inferior to the male child. Development of the female child is considered wasteful and worthless. Sometimes the female child is used as a means of settling debts owed by the family, Awake Feb. 22, 2006. In rare cases, if a member of a family commits murder, a female child from the murderer’s family is used to replace the decease.

A close examination of the girls’ situation in the family reveals a lot of discrimination in the institution especially in the low income settings. The female child experiences gender inequalities as a result of simply her status of belonging to the female brood. Girls in some traditional societies are denied even the simple right to existence in the mind of their fathers who are the family heads. Some men do not even count girls if asked the number of children born to them. His is a clear indication of preference detrimental to girls in the family. They are therefore undervalued with their brothers who are given the right of existence by their fathers. Women in this type of patriarchal society due to helplessness accept these attitudes, which perennially perpetuate gender discrimination. The female child is not even worthy of the property of her father neither alive or inherit them when he dies. In some families, males are provided or allocated rooms, but the young girl is made to share same room with the mother.

A female child is often betrothed to a proposed husband at the age of seven (7) years before she grew up to maturity. As regards formal education, a female child may not be trained by her father; he may instead prefer to train a nephew. A female child if so wish may be trained by the mother. There have been cases of some stern warning given to the wives% by their husbands for given birth to females Awake, Feb. 8, 2002. Sometimes the wives were made to pay for the cost of delivery of their babies by the midwife and subsequent care.

When a child is born there are a number of things and practices used to socialize him/her in order to fit well in the society. The child is expected to uphold the norms, values and the traditions of the society. Before joining formal education, the child learns the norms and the traditions from home. Home therefore acts as his/her first school in life. What he/she learns at home affects the child’s life both at school and in the larger society. Mazid, says that home is the first school and mother is the first teacher. Parents are builders of children’s character and minds. Different societies have different ways of life. That is, cultures are very diverse and they play an important role in the society. The cultural values of a community give it an identity of its own. A community gains a character and a personality of its own because of culture of its people. Culture is shared by members of a community.

Globally, all girls just like boys have a right to be educated so as to maximize their personal development and their contribution to their community and society. The World Conference on Education for all held in 2001, stipulated that every person has a right to be educated to his or her fullest potential. According to the World Education Forum held in Dakar in 2000, all children, particularly girls must have access to and complete education of good quality by the year 2015, World Conference on Education, 2001.

Education for girls is one of the criteria path ways to promote social and economic development, World Bank 2009. According to EFA global monitoring report 2003/04 increasing the educational level of girls has a favorable impact on economic growth. Since 2002, United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the global community have been striving to attain the Dakar Education for All (EFA) goals. Credible visionaries and world leaders such as former UN secretary General Kofi Annan continuously highlighted the role and powerful impact of girl‘s education, World Conference on Education, 2001.

UNICEF, 2002 noted that although the education system aims at removing social injustice and disparities between sexes, regions, social and economic groups, there are gender disparities in the formal education system, which indicate that female, are disadvantaged and their education completion rates are lower than that of boys. Factors such as parental attitudes towards girl-education, the need for girls to provide domestic assistance, dropouts from school due to pregnancies and differential performance between boys and girls discourages girls from continuing with education and the preference for investment in education for male children which relates to the concept of patrilineal descent system. According to these systems, inheritance passes through the male line. Boys retain responsibility for their parents while girls are incorporated in husband’s lineages.

In Africa, about 18 million girls are without education and more than 2/3 of Africa’s 200 million illiterate adults are women, UNESCO, 2010. Socio-cultural factors and attitude of parents on girls’ education have not kept pace with modernity United Nations, 2003. Considering the fact that education for girls and women is an urgent priority, the discrimination of girls in education furthermore persists in many African societies due to customary attitude; gender biased and prioritized child education systems. Obagi, revealed that key factors that contribute to girl’s dropout include social, cultural and religious beliefs, attitudes and practices, poverty, child labour, poor learning environments, lack of role models, HIV/Aids, curriculum, pedagogy and learners attitudes just to mention a few. Culture and Education are inseparable, as they are simply two sides of the same coin. The two concepts can in fact be said to be indistinguishable, as the primary definition of Education is Acculturation. Obanya, asserts that every human society irrespective of its level of technical evolution devotes great attention to transmitting its cultural heritage to the young. Obanya argues that education in its true sense was first threatened by schooling and most societies have been questioning the educational effectiveness of schools ever since they were invented.

In Kenya, Girl Child Network, GCN, 2004, mentioned culture and traditions as inhibiting factors affecting girls’ participation in education and the main aspects being Female Genital Mutilation (Female Genital Mutilation) and early marriages. The socio-cultural factors and its influence on the education of girls and issues on poor attitude or low participation in the system had been expressed well in Mbiti, who alludes that there are four major reasons that lead to girls withdrawal from education system which include greater demand made on girls by their families in connection with household duties, pre-arranged marriages leading to drop-out of girls from school, the girls who were circumcised become rude to teachers seeing female teachers as their equals and uncircumcised teachers (female and male) as children thus affecting girls’ participation in education.

In Kisii County, the social and cultural practices have looked down the importance of educating girl child. This has caused inequality between girl child and boy child. Girls have been forced to dropout from school for social and cultural reasons. In order for the government to realize the objective of providing equal educational opportunities along gender lines, factors that hinder girl’s advancement in education must be established and efforts made to minimize them and if possible eliminate them. This can be achieved through investigating the social cultural dynamics that influence dropout of girls from secondary school. 

Statement of the Problem

The school being the cradle of a child’s development provides the Child with emotional and educational support. However, the increase in the rate of poor academic performance of girls in Secondary Schools is steadily overwhelming in Nyamache Sub County, Kisii County. This study is therefore prompted by the trend of enrolment, retention and drop out patterns in Nyamache Sub County, Kisii County. Marriage is seen as making one gain a high social status; some parents also are not willing to educate their daughters due to the change of allegiance after marriage to their husband’s family. Due to this, parents turn to educating boys. There are twice as many boys as girls in secondary in Kisii County. In 2014 the completion rates was 42.3% as compared to 81% nationally. More specifically 56.4% boys completed secondary schools as compared to 27.6% of girls, Ruto et al. Despite the existence of these social cultural dynamics affecting girl child education, researchers looked on how socio-cultural dynamics were affecting education generally in Kenya without specifically looking on their effects on girl child education.

Literature Review

Social-cultural aspects of people determine the education aspirations of such communities and the importance put to education directly correspond to the extent to which the two variables conforms, Hardy. Given that social-cultural orientation of various communities differs in unique parameters, measures of such disparities are also recognizable in academic spheres. It is generally observed that social-cultural aspects of most communities in Africa have always discriminated against women even in areas of education and this has contributed more greatly to low transition of girls across the level of education, Tawa 2004. Basing on his study on factors influencing the dropout rates of girls among the Aborigins in Australia, Auralia, observed that the cultural aspects of community were still traditional in orientation that girls were only being viewed as home maids entrusted with the responsibility of taking care of homes, while their male counterparts could adventures into to emerging issues such as education. He further notes that in social environments, it was rare to locate women playing central community roles, but any appearance of such would be to offer care. 

Making

Several studies engage in gendered social practices such as how the investment in girls’ education differs from boys’: some of them imply that many households prefer investing in boys’ education because it is deemed more important, with the consequence of females being more likely to drop out. Hunt, claims that it is often seen as a poor investment to educate a girl since she is expected to marry and leave home; her education will then benefit the husband’s family rather than her own. Similarly, several studies recognize that gendered social practices within households as well as schools influence patterns of schooling access for girls. 

In the modern word, societies are consistently being confronted by changes in all spheres of life, that cultural yoke nagging girl’s progress in education must be broken to give sexes room to compete in order to realize sustainable development, Ann, she observes that institutions of higher learning is gradually realizing many women pursing further studies and among this woman, majority are either single or widows. The implication of this observation is that the greatest drivers of the biting powers of social-cultural practices are men and women who are not under their direct patronage had broken this bond of social-cultural and were therefore enjoying benefits of higher education.

In school, Kane, recognizes that gendered social practices sometimes take place within the classroom when teachers either encourage or discourage students to take on gendered tasks and roles. This indicates that females’ educational patterns are not only affected by the question of investment, but also by the notion of patriarchy embedded in society where the father or eldest male is head of the family, community and the government. Teenage pregnancy is a significant policy factor related to education access for young females. The common practices in Tanzania to expel pregnant girls from school violates the fundamental rights to education that is articulated by the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania, which says that all individuals who want to pursue education have equal rights to do so Johnson, 2011. Bhalalusesa, claims that in the situation of pregnancy, girls are assumed to take responsibility for the situation while the father suffers no school-related consequences. 

Other research has found that some mothers pull their daughters out of school once they reach puberty in fear of them becoming pregnant. An existing practice in Tanzania is that when a girl becomes pregnant, the young father meets with the girl’s family to negotiate a bride price. In this sense, traditional cultural gender norms subordinate women in the patriarchal system and hold back women’s educational development. According to several studies, dropouts are high in areas where marriage is arranged at an early age. The same studies show that girls are often encouraged to marry as soon as they reach puberty. 

Gains in education equivalently translates into economic development of a community, so much that different communities strive to ensure that education is provided to all in order to release this noble desire. With its main focus being retention and completion, a study conducted by Oywa, in Suba District, indicated that the district continue to register one of the poorest retention rates of girls and even among the few who are retained, their performance is wanting. He attributes such challenges to early marriages, HIV/AIDS and lack of regard for girls in education.

Additionally, notions of adulthood, like pregnancy and marriage, may make adolescents think themselves simply too grown up to stay in school, with dropout as a result. Traditional domestic roles are usually passed on from mother to daughter. According to Beoku-Betts, the primary roles of women in developing areas are farming, domestic labour and care giving. Sutton, argues that domestic responsibilities might result in lower priority of studying. As mentioned, conforming to traditional roles can jeopardize females’ educational opportunity, as can various belief systems and religious practices [1]. Even though variation exists, Muslim regions and countries in sub-Saharan Africa tend to have more strictly defined gender roles, which affect females’ access to enroll and complete education. However, Kwesiga argues that not only Islam, but also other religious ideologies, can put women in restricted roles and further have an impact on school enrolment [2].

Regarding the influence of early marriage on girls Holcamp, found that in rural areas girls' dropout rate became higher because parents consider girls' schooling as of no benefit when they leave their own family after getting married. Mansory, also found that early marriage is the foremost cause of early school dropout of girls in Afghanistan. A lot of research have highlighted on girls' age and education and found that when girls reach puberty, parents consider it is time for them to be married and tend to arrange the marriage instead of continuing schooling. Some studies argue that early marriage of girls is associated with dropouts in certain contexts. For instance, in societies where girls leave parental household after marriage, girls' dropout might be higher in that society [3]. 

The PROBE team, 1999 of India reported that in that country education might give girls better preparation for marriage however, despite this, parents sometimes are reluctant to let their daughters have their education as higher education raises the cost of marriage for girls. Shahidul, also found that in Bangladesh girls with lower socioeconomic backgrounds drop out from secondary school when schooling or higher education inflates dowry in the marriage market of girls. In this research, author argues that if girls have higher education but have lower parental socio-economic background, they face difficulties in getting a husband because pattern in which parents need to pay a higher amount of dowry to marry their educated daughters to similarly educated grooms thus resulting in early dropout among girls [4].

Early marriages are common in most African societies. Re-entry into education after early marriage has not been possible (UNESCO–UNICEF:- 2007) Research work by Onyango, indicated that socio-cultural norms and practices such as value attached to bride wealth influenced parents to marry off their daughters before maturity. Maritim, supported the findings by Onyango by stating that families in the lower socio-economic structures marry off their daughters in order to provide economic support in terms of bride wealth to the family. Mbilinyi and Mbughuri, added that in some African communities, girls are valued as objects of exchange in bride wealth. Girls are seen as sources of income by their parents in the custom of charging fines for adultery and pregnancies of unmarried girls. 

In this arrangement girls are denied opportunity for education. They are withdrawn from schooling during periods for initiation and betrothal ceremonies, United Nations. Odaga, concurred with Mbilinyi and Mbughuni by adding that African tradition and culture requires that girls be married off to qualify as good African women. This made members of the household to usually struggle to socialize their daughters to master skills of being good wives. The result of this is early drop out of school. 

Abagi, stated that marriage oriented socialization has made some girls withdraw from school for marriage. Although early marriage is disregarded, there is general fear of missing husbands after attaining higher education because of the men's suspicion of the learned girls. African men are used to orders and dictatorial instructions to women, which may not be accepted by learned women who are reasonable and rational. In this case schooling is therefore, seen as increasing the value of girls but lowering their chances for marriages [5]. 

Despite the fact that early marriage hinders attainment of higher education for girls, a study carried out on jobs and skills programmes for Africans revealed some positive attitudes towards female education. In the study men are seen working in mines of South Africa while mothers manage their chores without the help of their daughters. Here the drop out rate of girls is lower than that of boys and mothers value education as good even if they are not employed. Reading, writing, counting and science are valued for being good for children and hence provide justification for school attendance [6].

The problem of early marriage has continued to have negative impact on enrolment of girls for secondary education in many parts of Kenya. There are many examples to illustrate the issues early marriages of girls in Kenya. These include, first, Loaders in Isiolo County for example blamed two secondary school enrolment because of early marriage (Daily Nation 28th June 2008). Forced early marriage also contributes to low enrolment for education (Daily Nation of 15th March 2009). Second the Kajiado Women Lobby Group was seen fighting to protect Maasai girls from early marriages to promote girl child education (Daily Nation 26th March 2010). In their support, the United States envoy Auralia Brazeal appealed to Maasais to stop marrying off their girls and instead allow them to continue with education [7].

The study adopted a mixed methods approach. In other words, the study applied both quantitative and qualitative methods. The study further adopted the co current triangulation design, to investigate the effect of socio- cultural dynamics on girls academic performance secondary education in Nyamache Sub County, Kisii County. The study was carried out in Nyamache Sub County, Kisii County. The study was conducted in 20 secondary schools in Nyamache Sub County, Kisii County. The target population of the study comprised of 5701. The study used simple random sampling. The study sample consisted of 301 respondents [7]. The researcher used questionnaires and interview schedules in his data collection. Piloting of the questionnaires and interview schedules was done in 4 schools in Neighboring Keroka County. The validity of the instruments was done through the expert judgement of the supervisors. The reliability of the instruments was ascertained using test-retest method. Internal consistency of the instruments will be calculated using Cronbachs Alpha where a reliability coefficient of 0.72 was established. After collection of data from questionnaires, editing was done [8].

The study sought to find out how social practices allow investment on boy’s education compared to girls. This is shown in Table 1.

Majority (40%) of the respondents were undecided, followed by 35% who agreed with the statement, followed by 13% who disagreed and the least 7% strongly agreed. From the results the study therefore concludes that social practices such as giving the boy child a first priority in education could be playing a bigger role in low girls’ enrolment in public secondary schools. This could be attributed to the fact that girls are expected to get married therefore parents prefer to invest in the education of their sons.

Furthermore, cultural practices see education of a girl as a poor investment as shown in Table 2.

Table 1: Social practices allow investment on boys’ education

Source: Researcher 2021

Table 2: Cultural practices see education of a girl child as a poor investment

Source: Researcher 2021

Majority of the respondents disagreed with the statement, followed by 30% who were undecided, followed by 18% who agreed, followed by 7% who strongly agreed and the least 5% strongly agreed. This could mean that most of the communities are still practicing some cultures although not to a large extent. The findings are in line with those of Hazans et al. who argues that communities that practice pastoralist and FGM value early marriages of their daughters more than education. Some get unplanned pregnancies and are thus forced to marry at tender age and others are given out by their parents. Children here are engaged in activities such as herding cattle, weeding in the farms, harvesting and working as house helps.

Further data on gendered social practices is presented in Table 3.

Majority (40%) of the Respondents agreed with the statement, followed by 25% who strongly agreed, further followed by 10% who disagreed and the least 5% strongly agreed. This can interpreted that gender social practices within households influences girls access to education. Ayodo and Jagero, indicates that education cost poses a large burden to poor families who must contribute greater share of their household income after paying for food and other basic needs.

Socio economic status of parents contributes immensely to girls opting to getting married early as shown in Table 4.

Table 3: Gendered social practices within households as well as schools influence patterns of schooling access for girls

Source: Researcher 2021

Table 4: Socio economic status of parents contributes immensely to girls opting to getting married early

Source: Researcher 2021

Table 5: Traditions play a significant role in decisions to withdraw girls from school and in return get married in early ages

Source: Researcher 2021

Table 6: One-Sample Test

Source: Researcher 2021

Majority of the respondents 50% agreed, followed by 40% who strongly agreed, followed by 5% who were undecided, followed by 2.5% and the least were those 2.5%.

Traditions play a significant role in decisions to withdraw girls from school and in return get married in early ages as shown in Table 5 [9].

Majority (50%) of the respondents, followed by 40% who strongly agreed, 5% were undecided. Finally the least were those who disagreed and strongly disagreed who were 2.5% respectively family therefore they married them out in exchange for tokens that came up inform of dowry.

To establish the association between early marriages and girls retention collected data was subjected to one sample test analysis. The results are presented in Table 6. 

The study established that there was a relatively high (1.400) statistical difference between early marriages and girls retention in public secondary schools, where p value was 0.00 at 95% confidence level [10].  

The study also sought the head teachers opinion on the influence early marriages has on the girls’ retention. From the interview most of the head teachers held an opinion that indeed early marriages influenced girls’ retention in the study area. The head teachers further indicated that families played a major role in early marriages among school going girls.

On the question to whether early marriages influence girls’ academic performance the study concludes that indeed it has an impact girl’s education to a greater extent and the community around still prefers early marriages of school going girls which has been hindrance to girls completing their education successfully.

Recommendations

The study noted that there are number of cultural and socio-economic activities in which secondary school students are involved in Nyamache Sub  County. The study recommends that the schools should liaise with the local community elders and provincial administration to ensure that no student abandon school to participate.

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