PEACE CLUBS AND MANAGEMENT OF STUDENTS’ UNREST IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN KISUMU COUNTY, KENYA.

Abstract

Globally, occurrence of students’ unrest has been on the rise since19thC. The situation has not been any different in Kenya where secondary schools have experienced increasingly high levels of students’ unrest. The government therefore introduced Peace Clubs to help in the management of students’ unrest in public secondary schools. The thesis of this study, therefore, was that despite these efforts, many schools in Kenya still experience students’ unrest hence the need to assess Peace Clubs and management of students’ unrest in public secondary schools. Specifically, the study examined the status of Peace Clubs activities in public secondary schools, established the challenges in implementing Peace Clubs and also evaluated approaches to conflict management by Peace clubs. The study used a theoretical framework informed by contingency theory and integrative negotiations and peer mediation theory. The study applied descriptive survey research design with a target population of 91,834 comprising of BOM representatives, school sponsors, school principals, teachers and students. A total of 20 school principals, 20 BOM representatives, 20 sponsors, 140 teachers and 384 students were sampled to form a sample size of 584 respondents. The response rate was 96.23%. The researcher used focus group discussion, interviews and questionnaires to collect primary data while reviewed publications and reports from the County Director of Education office were used to obtain secondary data. The study applied content and face validity checks to ascertain the relevance of the research data collection instruments while reliability was ascertained using split half method. The data were then cleaned and coded using descriptive statistics and the results presented using frequency distribution tables, percentages, pie charts and bar graphs. The study found that in the majority of the schools where Peace Club activities existed, they were not active. However, they were active in a few schools and very active in negligible number of school; students’ attendance in peace programmes, school culture, funding of peace programmes, time allocation for peace programmes, religious background of students, training teachers in peacebuilding, availability of instructional materials and academic qualification of peace instructors were a challenge to the implementation of Peace Clubs in schools; forcing one’s own goals is the most commonly applied approach to conflict management by Peace Clubs in schools followed by mutually agreeing to end the conflict and bearing with the other party’s goals in that order while sacrificing one’s goals and keeping off the conflict is the least applied approach to conflict management by Peace Clubs. It was concluded that inactivity of Peace Club activities in majority of the public secondary schools in Kisumu County coupled with the myriad of challenges in implementing Peace Clubs have encouraged the majority of the students to force their own goals as an approach to conflict management in an attempt to manage conflicts that occur. Although forcing one’s own goals as a conflict management strategy is suitable where there is little room or time for discussion, it makes one party in a conflict to feel that they have the authority to be right and the other party must give in regardless of their feelings; it provides a win-lose solution to a conflict hence the losing party bears a grudge with the winning party. If this grudge is not timely and adequately resolved it leads to the occurrence of students’ unrest. This is the basis of the frequent students’ unrest that has been witnessed in the recent past in public secondary schools in Kisumu County. Despite the challenges, with proper implementation, Peace Clubs can be very effective in the management of students’ unrest in secondary schools in Kenya.