Preparedness of the Children’s Government in the Management of Discipline in the Public Primary Schools in Baringo Central Sub-county, Kenya

Abstract

The role of the student’s leadership in school administration in Kenya and other parts of the world is increasingly becoming more complex because of the changes in the technology, society, culture, encroachment of democracy and emerging issues such as child rights, human rights, HIV/AIDS and drugs and ban of corporal punishment. This has brought about the participatory role among the School Board of Management (BOM), the teachers, pupils and parents.  This study sought to investigate the level of implementation of Children’s Government and the level of preparedness of the Children’s Government in the management of discipline in public primary schools in Baringo Central Sub-county. This study adopted a descriptive survey research design and was guided by Participative leadership theory. The target population of the study was 119 public primary schools with a population of 2499 members of the children’s government, 119 headteachers and 952 class teachers.  Simple random sampling was used to select 36 public primary schools. All the headteachers and 30% of class teachers of the selected schools participated in the study. Purposive sampling was used to select 10 Executive members of the Children’s Government. The researcher utilized questionnaires and interview schedule to collect the data and the collected data was analysed using descriptive statistical techniques. The findings indicated that majority of the schools where the study was carried had children’s governments with free and fair election process of the members of children’s government. The members of the children government were usually involved in the management of pupils’ discipline.

Keywords: Children’s Government, discipline, management, preparedness, implementation.