Factors affecting the implementation of peace education curriculum in public primary schools in Molo district, Nakuru county, Kenya

Abstract

The Kenya Vision 2030, which is the blue print of development in Kenya, aims at making Kenya a globally competitive and prosperous nation through security, peace building, conflict management participatory governance, legal reforms and inculcation of a culture of respect for sanctity of human life. The general objective of this study is on the factors affecting the implementation of peace education curriculum in public primary schools in Molo District, Nakuru County, Kenya. The researcher has developed five research objectives from which research questions are drawn to be answered by the study. They are to establish whether peace education curriculum has been implemented in schools in the district, to determine availability of teaching materials in the implementation for the peace education in the district, to asses teachers attitude towards implementation of peace education curriculum, determine the approaches used in the implementation of peace education and identify the challenges faced by teachers in implementing peace education. Related literature to peace education was reviewed. This study is grounded on the integrative theory of peace in which. Danesh (2008) proposes an "integrative theory of peace" where peace is understood as a psychosocial, political, moral and spiritual reality. The descriptive research design was used to conduct the study. The study targeted all the 8 public primary schools in the district with a population of 97 teachers and 3,024 pupils. The study employed the survey method to study all the 8 schools. Purposive sampling techniques were used to get 8 head teachers and get 40 teachers and 240pupils as the respondents. Three questionnaires were used to collect the required information and the return rate was 100%. Data were analyzed using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 17.0. The main finding of the study were that, peace education was taught in all the schools within the district, as that there was no uniform time tabling practice on the teaching of pace education across the district, that the subject was mainly taught integrated with other subjects, that peace education was mainly integrated with Christian religious studies, social studies and life skills. That school had inadequate peace education materials, that there was no common methodology used in the teaching of peace education, and that teachers had a positive attitude towards the teaching of peace education. Challenges faced by teachers in the implementation of peace education in the district included lack of peace educational materials, trained teachers in peace education, inadequate time allocated and teachers being overloaded due to shortage of teachers. Based on the findings the study recommended that the Ministry of Education provides adequate teaching and learning peace education materials in the district, that the Ministry of Internal Affairs conducts comprehensive civic education and social cohesion to the residents in the area, to mitigate instances of recurrent conflict which is witnessed every electioneering years, that the ministry of education provides more in-service courses on peace and that the KIE provides guidelines on the methodologies of teaching peace education.