The challenges experienced by integrity clubs in public secondary schools in Nairobi City County, Kenya

Abstract

In Kenya, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) launched Integrity Clubs (ICs) in secondary schools in 2011 to teach students moral values and promote ethical behavior. Despite this, indiscipline and moral challenges have been found in most of the public secondary schools in Nairobi City County to continue to pull down the success of these clubs. Behavioral theory leading the study inspired the research by focusing on reinforcement and environmental factors contributing to the development of behavior to understand the ways Integrity Clubs can or cannot foster moral values. A convergent parallel mixed methods design was used, and the focus was on students, teachers, principals, and the Ministry of Education, as well as EACC officers, and a total of 448 respondents were sampled using the convergent parallel mixed methods design. The sampling of students was stratified random, whereas the planned population was the administrators and policymakers, who were purposively sampled. The methods of collecting data included questionnaires, interviews, focus group discussion, and document analysis. Descriptive and inferential statistics using SPSS version 25 were performed on quantitative data, and qualitative data were subjected to thematic analysis. The results demonstrated that ICs have the potential to affect ethical conduct positively by means of debate, mentorship, and value-based campaigns but are limited by ineffective administrative support, static strategies to reinforce the initiative, unorganized programming, and scantiness of resources. The participation was also negatively affected by low student motivation, peer pressure, and external socio-economic influences. At the end of the study, it is concluded that the success of the ICs is conditional upon consistent reinforcement, institutional commitment, sufficient facilitation, and active stakeholder participation. The policy suggestions involve the organized introduction of IC activities within school culture, improved training and engagement of club patrons, and improved resource proportions to maintain behavioral reinforcement strategies. These results can be used to form guidelines on education policy, as well as a follow-up in promoting the need for value-based learning in tackling moral decay among the Kenyan youth.