Doris Muthoni & Purity Muthima

Abstract

Globally, Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) has been identified as a key instrument of any nation in accelerating its economic development and in alleviating poverty. Through international conventions such as Education for all, Millennium goals and the most recent Sustainable Development Goals, United Nations over the years have continued to emphasize the importance of women participation in TVET for social, economic and technological development. Despite the tremendous initiatives that have been put in place in the past years in Kenya to increase women participation in Technical Vocational Education and Training courses by the government and other educational stakeholders, the underrepresentation of women in TVET Engineering courses is still evident. Several factors have continued to influence the number of women in TVET engineering courses. The objective of this paper is to establish how parental and family related factors influence enrolment of female students in engineering courses in Kenya’s public Technical Vocational Education and Training institutions. The study employed descriptive survey research design. The target populations were 3559 students in engineering department, 62 tutors, three TVET registrars and a County TVET Officer. Random sampling was used to select the institutions and purposive sampling was used to select the County TVET officer. Sample size was determined using Morgan and Krejcie table. Data was collected using
questionnaires and oral interview. Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential
statistics while the hypothesis was tested using linear regression analysis. The study revealed
that parental and family related factors such as parent’s level of education, field of education, and level of income, marital status and their cultural beliefs influenced female enrolment in engineering. The study recommends that the government through the Ministry of Education TVET department should improve the level of awareness to prospective students and parents on the need to enroll in engineering courses.

Keywords: Female Enrolment, parents, family, engineering courses, subject choice