Effect of household chores on female pupils’ academic performance in public primary schools: a case of Kisarawe district

The study investigated the effect of household chores on female pupils’ academic performance in public primary schools in Kisarawe district, Coast region. Specifically the study intended to: examine academic performance of public primary schools female pupils, explore the type and extent of household chores performed by female pupils and lastly, determine the extent to which involvement in household chores affect female pupils’ academic performance. The study was mainly qualitative and employed a case study design to collect data from three randomly sampled public primary schools. The study involved 67 respondents including District Academic Education Officer, head teachers, academic teachers, parents/guardians and Standard Seven pupils, who were sampled through purposive and stratified random sampling. Findings revealed that girls’ academic performance was lower than that of boys in the selected public primary schools. Girls participated in a lot of household chores including fetching water, collecting firewood, taking care of sibling and the sick, house cleaning and cooking and spent considerably more time on performing the chores than boys. The longer hours and high frequency of girls’ indulgence in household chores resulted in poor attendance, school lateness, less time for school assignments and exhaustion, all of which negatively impacted on girl pupils’ academic performance. The study recommends that the government through the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training and Regional Administration and Local governments at ward, village and school levels has to cooperatively design and implement programmes aimed at conscientizing parents/guardians on the importance of education for girls. There is a need for CBOs and NGOs such as Haki Elimu to campaign through the media against excessive household chores to pupils, especially girls. Education stakeholders such as ward education coordinators, teachers and district educational officers have to encourage parents/guardians through meetings at community and school levels on how to have equal distribution of household chores among household members.