| dc.description.abstract | The social political changes in Kenya as a society has led to increased demands on its various social structures, in particular the education sector which is charged with responsibility of developing its human resources.
One of the major demands posed on the education sector is the need for skills and knowledge for handling increased legal issues in schools, as a result of high demands for transparency, accountability, justice, respect for human rights and good governance by
the stake holders who are; students, teachers, parents donors, sponsors, government and
general public.
This demands have created the need to determine whether the situation have reached a level where the leadership of the education institutions required a specialized training on legal matters that are or may affect the education sector in general (i.e. Para-legal training). The study sought to fulfill five objectives:
i) To establish the percentage level of the need for Para-legal training for the school administrators.
ii) To establish the extent to which school administrators are conversant with basic knowledge of law and legal system in the country.
iii) To establish the extent to which the school administrators are conversant with the legal provisions that affect day-to-day operations of the schools.
iv) To identify the major legal issues in public secondary schools .
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v) To propose a Para-legal course outline for the school administrators based on
the research findings.
To realize these objectives the study answered the five research questions based on objectives:
i) What is the percentage level of the of need for Para-legal training for the public secondary schools administrators?
ii) What is the percentage level extent to which public secondary school administrators are conversant with the basic knowledge of the law?
iii) What is the percentage level of extent to which public secondary school administrators are conversant with the legal provisions that govern various aspects of the schools?
iv) What are the major legal issues in public secondary schools?
iv) What should the Para-legal course for secondary schools administrators entail?
The dependent variable for all the questions was the need for the basic knowledge of law. It was influenced by the independent variables, which were, legal issues in public secondary schools. This independent variables were viewed in terms of:
i) Realization of the need or importance of the basic knowledge of the law by the public school administrators in attending to legal issues in schools.
ii) Lack of basic knowledge of law and legal provisions that affects operations of schools more frequently among the public secondary school administrators.
iii) High occurrence of legal issues in public secondary schools.
iv) Lack of other ways of solving legal issues in schools amicably, a part from legal system.
The study was designed as descriptive survey research study. The stratified sampling was used to select 140 administrators from the National schools, Provincial schools, and District schools (see table 3.2). All the selected administrators (head teachers and deputy head teachers) were given questionnaire to complete. However only 110 questionnaires
were returned. Based on the study's data, the following were the key findings of this
study;
i) The majority of the public secondary schools administrators were Bachelor degree holders.
ii) There was Avery high percentage level of the need for Para-legal training among the public secondary school administrators (i.e. 72.08 percent).
iii) The percentage levels of basic knowledge of law and legal provisions for the public secondary school administrators were39.66 percent and 18.61 percent respectively.
iv) There were thirteen major legal issues in public secondary schools
(See Table 4.50)
v) Although the major legal issues were highly varied they were grouped into three major categories. These categories were used to as basis for proposing course out-line of the Para-legal training for the teachers. The course out-line consisted of three parts:
Part I: Elements of law
Part II: Administrative laws
Part III: Labour laws
Drawing from its findings the study suggested the following recommendation;
i) Frequent workshops, in-service and refresher courses for school administrators on legal aspects of schools should be enhanced.
ii) A framework for integration of legal training into the teacher training should be developed.
iii) Deliberate effort should be made towards establishment of an elaborated framework to develop educational laws as an area of specialization for those in the field of law as a discipline.
iv) Involvement of education professionals when formulating the lawsthat affects children and education in general should be given priority.
v) A policy should be developed to ensure that students are responsible for illegal acts they undertake. | en |
