Teachers' Lived Experiences with the Ban on Corporal Punishment as a Strategy for Addressing Moral Decline in Secondary Schools in Bungoma County, Kenya

Abstract

The eradication of corporal punishment in Kenyan schools in 2001 signaled a major shift in disciplinary techniques, with a greater emphasis on guidance and counselling as an alternative strategy. This transition spurred widespread debate among educators, legislators, and other stakeholders over the effectiveness of non-punitive techniques in preserving discipline and moral standards in schools. The purpose of this study was to investigate the lived experiences of teachers in regard to the ban on corporal punishment in Kenyan secondary schools. The study was anchored on the following objective. Examine the lived experiences of teachers with the ban on corporal punishment as a strategy for addressing moral decline in Kenyan secondary schools. The study was grounded on African communitarian philosophy, which is anchored on collective responsibility within the community in moral development of children. Communitarianism advocates the family as the place where personal responsibility is first learned and then schools – the second line of defense. The study adopted two philosophical methods for the purpose of bringing out methodological triangulation. Hermeneutic phenomenology was used in order to extract the lived experiences of the teachers handling discipline in secondary schools. Philosophical analysis was infused into all the objectives with the aim of helping to foster Socratic dialogue and building logical coherence from the extracted lived experiences. The target population comprised deputy principals and heads of guidance and counselling from secondary schools in Bungoma County. To provide a representative sample, this study utilized purposive sampling in choosing schools. A sample size of four deputy principals and four heads of guidance and counselling was chosen. The sample size was guided by the principles of hermeneutic phenomenological research which is concerned mainly with the depth and not the breadth of the information. Information utilized in this study was sourced from both primary and secondary data. Primary data was collected using unstructured phenomenological interviews. Secondary data was gathered from articles from peer referred journals, government policy documents and reports, thematic text books, internet sources, pioneer projects, theses and newspaper articles that allude to issues of moral concern in the Kenyan context. Primary data was analysed through IPA and secondary through document analysis. The study concluded that, the concept of corporal punishment in the lifeworld of teachers doesn’t ascertain the teacher’s ontology since there is no smooth relationship between the etic and the emic knowledge of the teacher over the same. The study therefore recommended   Socratic mode of teaching should be emphasised in order to prepare teachers for moral development among the learners. Communitarian philosophy should be emphasized so that all institutions within the society should be involved in the moral development of children.