Abstract:
Education for all is a global development need. Achievement of universal primary education
is addressed by the second United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG). In a bid
to achieve this goal, Kenya government initiated Free Primary Education (FPE) in January
2003. However, despite this effort, there has been educational wastage through declined
enrolments and increased dropout rates, which are common phenomena in Kangeta Division,
Igembe South District. The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of khat
production, trade and consumption on primary school dropout among boys in the Division.
The study focused on boys aged 6-16 years and was guided by 3 research questions. These
were. does providing the required labour for khat production cause the primary school boys to
drop out of school?; how does khat consumption by primary school boys influence boys’
school dropout?; to what extent does khat trade by primary school boys influence their school
dropout?. The study adopted a cross-sectional survey design. A sample size of 210 dropouts
was used based on Balians’ recommendation of having an average sample of 200 respondents
adjusted by 10-15 % to cater for attrition. All the head teachers of the selected 10 schools
were included in the sample to give a total of 220 respondents. Questionnaire and interview
guide whose reliability coefficients were alpha 0.83 and 0.72 respectively were used for data
collection. Validity of the instrument was ascertained by a panel of five experts from the
department of Agricultural Education. Data was analyzed by a t-test and a chi-square test
using the SPSS software package. Frequency tables and percentages summarized the results.
The study findings indicated that the drop out of school among the primary school boys in the
Division is as a result of providing cheap labour in miraa production. The findings revealed
the effects of khat chewing to the behaviour of the user and it is this behaviour that causes the
boys to drop out of school. The findings further indicated that the easy money these boys earn
after engaging in khat business influence them to drop out of school. These findings of the
study would be useful to the entire community, educationists and policy makers in finding
ways of reducing the school dropout for the boys in Kangeta Division.
