School factors influencing integration of human rights education in public secondary school curriculum in Kasarani sub-county, Nairobi city county Kenya

Abstract

Human rights are those rights that belong to all human being everywhere in the world. They are universal, inalienable, indivisible and interdependent. Each person irrespective of status or any other factor has rights which should not be infringed for peace and prosperity within the society to be realized. It is against this background that nations have integrated human right education in their curriculum. However, despite efforts to integrate human rights education in the school curriculum, levels of human right awareness among the students and teachers in many countries is wanting and teachers still violates some of these rights. Therefore, this study sought to investigate school factors affecting human rights integration in public secondary schools in Kasarani sub-county, Nairobi city county, Kenya. The variables investigated included, students and teachers’ level of human right awareness, teachers’ perception towards teaching of human rights education, instructional resources and teaching strategies. The study adopted descriptive survey design which involved `selecting a sample from the population and on that basis inferences are made about the population from which it is drawn. The population included 1303 form three students and 280 teachers from the public secondary schools at Kasarani Sub-County. Students were selected using stratified random sampling to get a sample of 298 forms three that were included as participants in this study. Teachers were selected using purposive sampling technique to obtain a sample of 40 teachers who were History, Christian Religious Education, and Life Skills teachers. Research instrument used in this study were open and closed ended questionnaires. Qualitative data was analyzed using content analysis and quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. The result indicated that instructional resources for teaching human right were inadequate. Teachers used lecture method to teach human right education. Teacher’s perception towards human right education was positive though many had low self-efficacy due to lack of training on how to teach human right education. The students showed high level of human rights awareness with the internet being a major contributor to this awareness. The following recommendations were made. School administration to provide adequate instructional resources, integration of aspects of human right in Key subjects relevant to the topic, carrying out of in-service and pre-service courses on human right to increase teacher’s confidence, teachers to use students centered and interactive teaching strategies for quality integration of Human Rights Education in Secondary school curriculum in Kenya.