Influence of Co-Curricular Activities and Categorization of Public Secondary Schools on Students’ Commitment to Democratic Values in Kenya

Abstract

Deficiencies in students’ commitment to democratic values in public secondary schools, have remained to be one of the major 21st Century education challenge in Kenya. This challenge which manifested itself in form of perennial students’ violent-civil disobedience, continues to cause high levels of damage and loss of property, human injuries and sometimes loss of life. In an effort to address these challenges, expansion of the scope for nurturing students’ commitment to democratic values beyond formal curriculum is considered to be a fundamental solution. In pursuing this line of thought, the co-curricular activities and categorisation of schools are considered as frames of operation within the school system that are envisioned to have the potential to facilitate this solution. Based on this premise, the study was designed to explore the potentials for co-curricular activities and categorization of schools in influencing students’ commitment to democratic values in public secondary schools. The study was conducted in Kiambu County and addressed the following objectives: establishing influence of talent enhancement, academic enhancement and school social movements’and other co-curricular activities on students’ commitment to democratic values. It further investigated the influence of categorization of schools on students’ commitment to democratic values. To achieve these objectives ex-post facto research design was used. The target population was 28,213 Form IV students. Stratified proportionate random sampling procedure was used to select a sample of 430 students. A student questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data from the students. The reliability of Likert scale was estimated using Cronbach alpha which was found to be 0.82. Percentages, mean and standard deviation were used to describe the number of students per cocurricular activity and school categorization. T-test was used to test hypothesis H01, H02 and H03. 1-Way ANOVA was used for testing Hypothesis H04 and H05. The results of the 1-Way ANOVA were confirmed using Tukey’s SDH test and multiple regression. The results on test of hypotheses revealed the following: there was statistical significant difference in commitment to democratic values between students involved in talent enhancement co-curricular activities and those not involved (t (238.480) = 36.067, P = 0.0001), there was statistical significant difference in commitment to democratic values between students involved in academic enhancement cocurricular activities and those not involved (t (187.402) = 30.928, P = 0.0001) and there was statistical significant difference in commitment to democratic values between students involved in social movement co-curricular activities and those not involved (t (108.450) = 26.291, P = 0.0001). The tests further revealed that there was statistical significant difference in commitments to democratic values among students involved in talent enhancement, academic enhancement and school social movement co-curricular activities (F (2, 340) = 4.70, p ≤ 0.01) with Tukey’s test indicating talent enhancement was significantly different from other two co- curricular activities. Multiple regression on co-curricular activities yielded a significant regression equation (F (3, 339) = 5.563, p<0.001) with R2 of .047. Tests on categorisation of schools showed, there was statistical significant difference in commitments to democratic values among students involved in co-curricular activities in national schools, extra-county schools, county schools, sub-county schools (F (3, 339) = 16.73, p ≤ 0.001) with Tukey’s test indicating; national schools were significantly different from the other three schools. Multiple regression on categorisation of schools yielded a significant regression equation (F (4, 338) = 12.790, p<0.001) with R2 of 0.31. Hence hypothesis Ho1, Ho2, Ho3, Ho4 and Ho5 were rejected. The study concludes the co-curricular activities and categorization of public secondary schools influenced students’ commitment to democratic values. The study recommends students’ participation in cocurricular activities be enhanced in all categories of schools and co-curricular activities be adopted as a core framework for integration of national democratic values among students.