Factors Influencing Teachers' and Students' Perceptions of Individual Rights of Students in Public Secondary Schools in Eldoret Municipality, Kenya

Abstract

This study was concerned with secondary school students’ and teachers’ perceptions towards students’ individual rights. In spite of the improved Children’s Act, many teachers are unsure of the benefits of granting students’ rights and some continue to violate students’ individual rights with adverse results. The goal of the study was to establish socialization experiences that cultivate appropriate perceptions towards students’ individual rights as well as identify perceptual differences due to gender and teacher training. From the populations of 2942 students and 197 teachers, stratified sampling was used to choose respondents that comprised 209 students and 105 teachers respectively. Data was collected by means of questionnaires developed by the researcher for the causal comparative survey. Descriptive statistics including means and the Chi-square test at a significance level of 5% were used for analyzing data. The results indicate that students’ individual rights to choice, information access and freedom from corporal punishment stood the risk of violation by teachers. The right to education and protection from psychological and emotional abuse enjoyed comparatively more respect by teachers. Teaching experience, teachers’ grade and early exposure to newspapers were associated with teachers’ perceptions towards corporal punishment. Some students’ rights, that is, freedom from corporal punishment and right to education were associated with students’ gender. School administrators may find the manipulation of the following variables useful in enhancing the Welfare and status of students’ individual rights. These include the maintenance of a democratic approach to management and suitable male to female ratios among students and teachers. The minimum age and years of teaching experience of the head teacher as well as the grade of the majority of the teachers in a school could impact on students’ rights. While greater awareness is required in order to enhance the way teachers and students perceived students’ rights to choice and freedom from corporal punishment, students need to get more active through debate, clubs, publication, representation and to speak with one voice. Students’ perceptions were divided on forced repetition, corporal punishment and representation on school management committees.