THE EFFICACY OF MORAL EDUCATION FOR CHARACTER FORMATION IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN KAKAMEGA COUNTY, KENYA: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH

Abstract

Historically, education has been responsible for transmitting social values, norms, customs, and expectations. As a normative enterprise, it has inherent normative goals that entrust it with the responsibility of imparting societal expectations, morals, beliefs, opinions, standards, cultures, norms, and customs to learners, with the primary goal of societal well being and continuity. Philosophers and educators contend that education plays a crucial role in instilling moral values in learners. Moral values form the basis for a happy society with social and economic progress, peace, and harmonious coexistence. However, there are many obstacles to realising the moral ideal of character formation. The obstacles are related to curriculum content and teaching approaches. Curriculum contents such as Christian religious education, Hindu religious education, and Islamic religious education, primarily intended to promote moral education for character formation, are mainly approached from a cognitive and examination-oriented perspective. This is evident in the observable and undesirable behaviours of students in schools, such as arson in school, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, public indecency and misuse of school and public resources. Therefore, this study sought to investigate the efficacy of moral education for character formation in public secondary schools in Kakamega County, Kenya: A phenomenological approach. The study was guided by three main objectives, namely, to investigate the value of the aims of moral education for character education in public secondary schools in Kakamega County, Kenya, to investigate teachers' perspectives on the effectiveness of moral education for character education in public secondary schools in Kakamega County, Kenya and to establish effective approaches on moral education for character education in public secondary schools in Kakamega County, Kenya. The Aristotelian theory of eudaimonia and phenomenological theory guided the study. Phenomenological hermeneutic and critical methods were also used in this study. Purposive sampling was used to recruit four deputy principals and eleven Christian religious education teachers from seven public secondary schools, while unstructured interviews were conducted to collect primary data. Secondary data was collected by analyzing documents. The data collected was analyzed thematically using Braun and Clarke's six steps. The study revealed that moral character education is crucial in addressing the perennial problems faced by the education sector and the country. Further, the study also established that the approaches or strategies of moral education for character formation are not well implemented to serve the moral goals of education. With this in mind, the study identified seven approaches to moral education for character formation: dialogic learning, practical learning, holistic learning, experiential learning, integrated curriculum approach, virtue-based approach, and reflective approach. The study recommends that moral education should be embedded in all subjects rather than confined to specific courses or discussions, experiential learning methods should be implemented, and schools should provide professional development opportunities that focus on moral education approaches