Impact of Student Councils involvement in School Policy Formulation on School Discipline in Public Secondary Schools in Meru County

Abstract

The cases of students’ unrests in secondary schools have been rampant across the country. The purpose of this study was to assess the influence of student council’s involvement in school policy formulation on students’ discipline in public secondary schools in Meru County. The study adopted mixed methods approach. The target population was deputy principals, heads of departments of guidance and counselling, and presidents of student councils all drawn from 326 secondary schools of Meru County summing up to a total population of 978 respondents. Questionnaires were used to collect data from heads of guidance and counselling department and presidents of student councils while interviews schedules were used to collect data from deputy principles. The findings indicated that students’ council involvement in policy formulation was statistically associated with the level of students’ discipline in secondary schools. This was supported by the log odds result where a unit increase in students council involvement on policy formulation does improve the odds of the level of discipline being satisfactory as indicated by the exponential beta results (Exp (B) = 6.271). An improvement on student councils’ involvement on policy formulation increases the probability of having satisfactory discipline in secondary schools by 6.271 times. Therefore, at P= 0.023<.05 level of significance the null hypothesis is rejected and accepts the alternate hypotheses implying that student council’s involvement in school policy formulation has a significant influence on students’ discipline. It can therefore be concluded that schools with high students’ council involvement on policy formulation have higher chances of having higher level of students discipline as compared to those without or with low student council involvement in policy formulation. The school administration should involve student’s council in the management of discipline by engaging them in amendment, formulating and enforcing school rules and regulations. This would reduce indiscipline cases in the school and improve on their management of students’ discipline. Keywords: Student Council’s Involvement, School Policy Formulation to enhance, Students’ Discipline, Public Secondary Schools