Influence of family factors on promoting female students’ education in South District Unguja, Zanzibar.

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to examine the family factors that influence female students’ in secondary schools in Zanzibar. It fills the gap of accustomed practices to examine systematic factors in the body of knowledge. This paper is based on the study that was conducted in Zanzibar. The paper adopted a mixed methods approach with a causal comparative design. The study adopted purposive and systematic random sampling procedures to arrive at 193 sample size of female students in the study area. Data were collected in three schools using questionnaire survey, and key informant interview methods. Data were analysed using theme and content analysis and descriptive statistics with statistics package for social sciences software. It was found that students are variably influenced by family factors in enabling the learning process at school based on ownership of books, and study rooms, and time availed at home for studying. Evidence indicated that Only 28 (40%), 21 (35%), and 34 (85%) of female students in Makunduchi, Jambiani and Charity Bwejuu agreed to have study room ownership respectively. There was also evidence that majority of female students had agreed to have less time spent from studying at home than at school as indicated in Makunduchi 33 (47.14%), Jambiani 31 (51.66%) and Charity Bwejuu 40 (100%) respectively. The study also found that family capacity involving food support at home to female students, availability of school uniforms, allocation of adequate study time at home by female students, and care givers’ provision of education advice to female students variably influence on enabling female students learning at home. It was concluded that there are family factors that influence female students’ performance in secondary schools in Zanzibar. Therefore, it was concluded that the family factors on the private school have more positive higher level of influence than public schools. Hence, the need to redress the existing situation in order to enhance the learning process that will improve the performance of female students in public schools in the area.