The Influence of Availability of Computer Facilities in Public and Private Secondary Schools on Students? Choice of Computer Studies as a Learning Subject in Machakos Sub-County, Kenya

The main purpose of this study was to investigate factors that influenced students? choice of computer studies in both public and private secondary schools in Machakos Sub-County, Kenya. The objective of the study was to establish how, availability of computer facilities influenced students? choice of computer studies as a learning subject in public and private secondary schools in Machakos Sub-County, Kenya. The study reviewed related literature that provided findings from previous researches on factors influencing students? choice of computer studies in public and private secondary schools based on the availability of computer facilities. The study used descriptive survey research design. The study embraced census sampling technique to select the sample size of the computer studies students, computer studies teachers and the head teachers of secondary schools. Data was collected through questionnaires as the main research instruments. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and processed by use of SPSS programme. The results of data analysis and interpretation were presented in frequency distribution tables and percentages. The results indicated that, availability of computer facilities in both public and private secondary schools highly influenced students? choice of computer studies. However, private secondary schools were found to be better equipped with computer equipment /facilities compared to public secondary schools. Therefore, the study recommended that schools especially public secondary schools should be equipped with adequate computer facilities in order to enable more students choose computer studies and ensure quality of the skills impacted. This implied that availability of computer facilities would ensure that the students were adequately exposed to computer projects/practical, for easy interaction and adaption to the work environment. In view of this paper computer studies should be made a compulsory subject in the Kenyan education system.