Providing Sanitary Towels to Teenage Girls: Implications for Retention and Academic Performance in Public Primary Schools in Narok North Sub-County, Kenya

Abstract

This study sought to establish whether teenage girls who had been provided with sanitary towels were more likely to complete primary school and if doing so also enhanced their academic performance. A descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire and focus group discussions from randomly selected 110 class seven girl pupils from 16 primary schools in the Central Division of Narok North Subcounty who had benefited from a sanitary towels provision project. The findings show that school retention and academic performance of teenage girls who benefited from the provision of sanitary towels was better than that of their counterparts who were not been provided with the sanitary towels. The study recommends that primary school administrators need to encourage parents to make available sanitary towels to their daughters so as to retain them in schools during their menstrual period as this directly improves their academic performance. The government is also urged to avail sanitary towels to girls in primary schools just as it provides textbooks to such schools as this will increase accessibility of education to teenage girls in primary schools consequently enhancing the girl’s potential to meaningfully participate in socio-economic and political affairs of the society.