The impact of school closures on educational return rates in Kenya : A regression analysis of socioeconomic differences and other influential factors

Sammanfattning: This paper studies how the school closures in Kenya as a result of the corona pandemic have affected students in Kenya depending on different socio-economic classes. In addition, the study examines how access to the internet, the gender of the student, access to education during the school closures and location of residence affected the return to school after the school closures in Kenya. In order to obtain results, the work is based on data from Covid-19 Rapid Response Phone survey made by The World Bank in collaboration with the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics and the University of California. Furthermore, have pooled cross section regressions and cross section regressions been used. In addition, fixed effects for households have been included to measure how the children are affected differently excluding the social circumstances. The results that this paper presents are that factors influencing the returning rate in Kenya during the school closure were internet access, gender, availability of distance learning and place of residence. Surprisingly, girls were more likely to return to school, contrary to gender norms. Initially, access to education and the internet correlated positively with not returning to school, but later it had a negative impact, which may indicate that students with access to this delayed their return. In conclusion, socio-economic factors and access to the internet and distance learning played a significant role in influencing dropout rates in Kenya.