Institutional factors influencing students’ involvement in governance in public secondary schools in Kigumo district, Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate the institutional factors influencing students’ participation in governance in public secondary schools in Kigumo District. The study was guide by the following objectives: to establish the influence of school size, headteachers’ gender and administrative experience, school category, school type on students’ participation in governance; and to identify the different ways in which students participate in governance in public secondary schools in Kigumo District The study employed a descriptive survey design targeting all the 10, 091 students and 34 headteachers from all the 34 secondary schools in Kigumo District. Participating schools were first categorised into county and district schools and then stratified according to type – boys’ only, girls’ only, mixed day and boarding and mixed day schools. Out of the targeted10, 091 students, 371 were sampled. In addition, 28 headteachers were also sampled to participate. A questionnaire designed for headteachers and another one for students were used for data collection. Instrument reliability was established at 0.6957. Data was both qualitative and quantitative. Quantitative data collected was coded and entered into an SPSS programme for analysis. Qualitative data was put under themes consistent with the research objectives. In order to determine the relationship between independent and dependent variables of the study, t-test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests were used at the 0.05 level of significance. The study established that students’ were not fully involved in school governance since they were excluded from key decision making areas of the school. It was revealed that schools with higher students’ enrollment were more likely to involve students in school governance compared to those with low enrollment trend. It was also established that headteachers’ gender did not have any influence on student’s involving on governance again, national and county schools involve students more in governance than the others. Furthermore, single sect schools that is boys only, girls only involve students in governance only than mixed schools .The study established that administrative experience positively influenced headteachers’ involvement of students’ in decision making process. The study recommends that schools should form students’ council in which students’ views and ideas can be heard and discussed; Ministry of education should organize and offer seminars to ensure that school heads are well sensitized on the importance of involving students in school governance; among others