Effectiveness of peer counselling programme in public secondary schools students' discipline in Nakuru Municipality,Kenya

Abstract

Prior to the banning of the controversial corporal punishment in Kenyan schools. the cane has for many years been a method of controlling discipline among students. llowcver. in 200] the Kenyan government outlawed the canning of students in Kenyan schools. /\s a result. the government has emphasized on the establishment ol‘ Peer counselling programme which is spear headed by the department of guidance and counselling. in instilling discipline among students, along side the use of non-corporal punishment. The purpose of this study was therefore to assess the effectiveness of peer counselling programme on public secondary school students‘ discipline. This study employed a survey research design. The population under study comprised of I3 teacher counsellors. 8| peer counsellors and 669 students from 13 secondary schools in Nakuru Municipality. The sample size for the study was 13 teacher counsellors, 67 student peer counsellbrs and 246 form three students giving a total of 326 respondents. Sampling procedure adopted were purposive and simple random sampling techniques. Data was collected by use of questionnaires and analyzed by use of descriptive statistics with the aid of the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 12.5 for windows. The major findings of this study revealed that peer counselling programme has had significant effect on students‘ discipline. The study indicated that peer counsellors help in behaviour changes of the students. lndisciplined students can be able to change their had behaviours through guidance and counselling services offered by peer counsellors. Students also indicated that they prefer disclosing their problems to peer counsellors than teacher counsellors. Recommendations have been made for the peer counselling programme for the secondary schools, to the Ministry of Education, NGOs and other donor agencies. which if implemented may boost participation of the students and peer counsellors. lt is hoped that the findings of this study might assist the Ministry ol‘ Education Counselling programme in Secondary Schools through teacher counsellors‘ training, peer counsellors" training proper implementation of the guidance and counselling programme and proper recognition of both teacher counsellors and peer counsellors.