Impact of Student Leaders’ Participation in School Management Meeting Programs on Learners’ Discipline in Public and Private Secondary Schools in Machakos Sub-County, Kenya

Abstract

The paper focused on student leaders’ participation in school management forums as an effective policy of student leaders’ integration in school governance. In-depth involvement of student leaders in school management meetings is a valuable link between the students’ body and the school management. It is a worthwhile chance for the student leaders to interact and share with the school Management their perspectives and concerns on academic and discipline issues in the school. Utilization of the information gathered during management forums by both the student leaders and the school management in decision making translates to impressive learning environment, learners’ discipline and academic performance. The study was carried out in Machakos sub-county, Machakos County, Kenya. The aim of the study was to investigate the impact of student leaders’ participation in school management forums on learners’ discipline in public and private secondary schools in Machakos sub county. The study was guided by two objectives; to establish the status of student leaders’ participation in school management meetings and establish the impact on learners’ discipline. The study embraced a descriptive survey design. Simple random sampling and purposive sampling were employed to get a representative Sample size. Data were collected using questionnaires for the students and teachers and interview schedules for the deputy principals, principals, Board of Management (BoM) chairpersons, and directors of private schools. Further, relevant documents were scrutinized for triangulation of the information provided by the sampled respondents. The data collected was processed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 21. The statistics were tabulated and subjected to regression analysis using ANOVA and coefficient models.

The study established student leaders’ participation in school management meeting programs as a golden chance for student leaders to interact with the school management as they express views and suggestions on school routine, rules and regulations. Action on gathered information created a peaceful school environment suitable for mentoring learners. The result was improved learners’ discipline. In contrast, student leaders who did not actively and openly interact with the school management missed an opportunity to gather information and share the students’ body thoughts and hence did not identify the real feeling of the school managers for integration and action. The outcome was emergence of misconceptions resulting to unwarranted behavior among the learners. The study concluded that participation of student leaders in school management meetings was significantly higher at (p) 0.003 than student leaders not participating in school management meetings programs (p) 0.047. Hence the null hypothesis was rejected. The study recommended that school principals and the school Board of Management should organize frequent interactive forums with the student leaders to gather relevant information on various issues in the school, hence ensure informed decisions.