Effectiveness of the 2020 school re-entry policy on increasing expectant girls' and teenage mothers' access to education in Narok County, Kenya

The objective of the study was to assess the effectiveness of the implementation of school re-entry policy guidelines that were developed by the Ministry of Education (MoE) in 2020 in order to establish how the implementation has increasing access to education by expectant girls and teenage mothers in Narok County, Kenya. Convergence parallel design with cross sectional and hermeneutic phenomenology strands provided the blueprint for data collection and analysis. The target population comprised of 132 girls and mixed public secondary, 264 Guidance and counselling teachers, 3,300 non – guidance and counselling teachers, 300 form three students in year 2022, 264 teenage mothers and expectants girls in school, 264 teenage mothers and expectants girls out of school, 264 parents of teenage mothers and expectant girls, 8 Sub – County Directors of Education in Narok County, 36 health officers, 1 County Education gender officer and 6 Non – Governmental organisations. The survey included 720 respondents chosen using probability and non-probability sampling procedures. The study was anchored on Liberal Feminism and critical theories. A questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data while interview guides and FGD discussion guides collected qualitative data. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse quantitative data while thematic analysis was used to analyse qualitative data. The evaluation established that the school re-entry rate of teenage mothers is low ranging between 5% to 15% leaving about 85% out of school. This is attributed to factors such as lack of monitoring to track implementation status at the school level, unfavorable school environment, inadequate enforcement by the MoE, financial constraints, limited support by baby fathers and parents and poor record keeping. The evaluation makes key recommendations including the need for the MoE to undertake quarterly monitoring of the policy implementation at the school level, instituting and enforcing accountability mechanisms for stakeholders and adopting a holistic and multi-stakeholder approach to addressing challenges that affect the effective execution of the policy. Key words: Effectiveness of school re-entry policy, Expectant girls, Teenage mothers, Access to education, Evaluation