| dc.description.abstract | The county governments have been spending a lot of money on public Vocational Training Centers trainees in the form of a bursary. It was on this basis that the purpose of the current study was to establish the relationship between the amount of the Bungoma County Government Bursary Fund and students’ access to public Vocational Training Centers in Bungoma County. The study had three objectives.: to determine the trends of the amount of the Bungoma County Government Bursary Fund and access, to determine the relationship between the amount of the Bungoma County Government Bursary Fund and gross enrolment, and to determine the relationship between the amount of the Bungoma County Government Bursary Fund and completion rates in public Vocational Training Centres in Bungoma county between 2014 to 2019. In line with the purpose and objectives of the study, the correlational research design was adopted and it was guided by the socialist economics of education theory and the principle of demand and supply as the theoretical framework. Using the table for sample size determination by Krejcie and Morgan, the study selected 48 out of 54 Vocational Training Centers’ managers (also called principal instructors) 4 of 4 Sub County Vocational Education and Training Officers, and 358 out of 3578 Vocational Training Centers’ trainees. The study employed the use of a stratified proportionate random sampling technique. Data was then collected using questionnaires, interviews, and document analysis. The test-retest method was used whereby, a pilot study was conducted on one of the Vocational Training Centers that was not part of the study sample to ascertain that the research instruments were reliable (spearman rank order correlation r(0.75)). Construct and content validity were established to determine the validity of research instruments. The trends of the amount of the Bungoma County Government Bursary Fund and access (gross enrolment and completion rates) were found to have fluctuated in sampled Vocational Training Centers during the period under study. The strength of the correlation was established using Karl Pearson’s product-moment correlation whereby, the study established that the amount of the Bungoma County Government Bursary Fund had a weak positive correlation with gross enrolment and a very weak positive correlation with completion rates. Using the R2 obtained from the model, it was also established that the amount of the Bungoma County Government Bursary Fund explains 2.7% of the variation in gross enrolment and 5.1% of completion rates. The null hypotheses were rejected by the study and the following recommendations were made by the study: one, that the system of allocation of the Bungoma County Government Bursary Fund be changed to appreciate the needs of trainees, two, that the amount of the Bungoma County Government Bursary allocated per trainee be increased to cover the full cost of the course and three, that the fund be expanded to cater for examination fees | en_US |
