Challenges faced by the community in accessing bursaries in selected secondary schools of Chipata district of Zambia.
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Date
2022-08-10
Authors
Sakala, Malecy
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The University of Zambia
Abstract
Bursary for pupils at secondary schools was introduced in Zambia through the Department of Social Welfare of the Ministry of Community Development, Mother and Child Health to help orphaned and vulnerable children (OVCs) in accessing secondary school education. The study was therefore designed to ascertain the awareness about and access to bursaries at secondary school, as well as the challenges that members of the community in Chipata Urban face in accessing these bursaries.
The study had three objectives which were to investigate how beneficiaries for bursaries at secondary school are selected by the bursary providers; to establish community awareness about the availability of bursaries in their area; and to investigate the challenges that members of the community face in accessing secondary school bursaries for the OVCs.
The study was guided by the rights based education theory adapted from Tomasevski (2001) and it employed the descriptive survey research design. The sample size was head teachers of four (4) secondary schools, five (5) heads of bursary provider institutions and thirty (30) members of a vulnerable community giving a total sample of thirty nine (39) participants. Sampling procedures included maximal variation and confirm and disconfirm purposive sampling. The instruments for data collection included an interview guide for head teachers, another interview guide for providers of bursaries to secondary school pupils and a questionnaire for the members of the community. For the analysis of data, answered questionnaires were organized, categorised, quantified and classified according to the objectives of the study. The data was then summarised into percentages and tables.
From the study, it was established that the different bursary providers at secondary school selected beneficiaries at the beginning of the first term, in most cases, and that the criteria for selection of bursary beneficiaries was very similar. The selection criteria included vulnerability, recommendation from community leaders or provider representatives in schools or community and examination results for grades seven or nine. Generally, it can also be concluded that the mode of selection of bursary beneficiaries by the various providers is not clear and not reliable. It was also established that members of the community were aware of the existence of bursary at secondary school in their area but that the information they had was not enough to help them access bursaries more easily. From the findings, it can be concluded that the members of the community have several challenges in accessing bursaries at secondary school which included difficulty in accessing bursary, lack of transparency in the mode of selection, lack of publicity and nepotism. The general conclusion that can be given from the findings is that many OVCs are not accessing bursary at secondary school due to the many challenges they face in the community.
The major recommendations of the study were that government and community leaders should take a centre role in encouraging the private sector to come on board in terms of bursary provision in line with the rights based educationtheory. In addition, the providers must restrategise their mode of operation to ensure enrolment of correct beneficiaries or correct enrolment of beneficiaries? The further research recommended in this study was to investigate challenges faced by OVCs to complete primary education.
Description
Thesis
Keywords
Bursary--Government.