Abstract:
The purpose of the study was to assess the extent to which parents’ socio-economic status influence students'
academic performance in public day secondary schools in Marani Sub- County Kisii County, Kenya with a view
to generating policy recommendations on how to manage their effects. This study used a descriptive survey
design. The unit of analysis was 29 public day secondary schools in Marani Sub- County of Kisii County,
Kenya. The respondents of the study were 1,501 form four students by the time of the study, 29 principals and
301 teachers. In this study simple random sampling was used to sample schools, teachers and students while
purposive sampling was used for principals. This study employed content validity and the reliability coefficient
of 0.8390 was obtained and was taken as being a perfect measure of the instruments of data collection. The
findings of this study indicated that the lower the parents’ socio-economic status the lower the students’ average
grade and number of points in performance while the higher the parents socio-economic status the higher the
academic performance of the students. Based on the findings of this study, it was concluded that parents’
socio-economic status influenced students' academic performance in public day secondary schools. The
conclusions recommended that the Kisii County government in collaboration with Ministry of Education should
sensitize parents with low level of education to attend adult classes organised by the communities for them to
be explained about the reading and writing; calculating; monitoring students’ academic activities both at home
and at school.
