dc.description.abstract | The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of family child abuse on
the academic performance of learners in Waia division, Mbooni East District. To
achieve this, five research objectives were formulated. These objectives were to
examine the meanings and scope of child abuse in families, to assess whether
child abuse at homes affected their academic performance, to establish the
availability of special needs trained teachers in public primary school, to examine
the association of abused children with non-abused children at school and to
access the role of school teachers in working with the abused children. The study
was based on Bandura’s social cognitive theory. The study used descriptive
survey design to gather both qualitative and quantitative data. The research
instruments that were used in the study included questionnaires which had
structured close-ended and open ended questions, they achieved a return rate of
100 percent.
The findings revealed that 50 teachers (66%) defined abused children as those
who came to school hungry, dirty, with no enough clothing, had sustained
truancy, sustained failure to complete or do homework and aggressiveness. The
findings further revealed that the scope of child abuse include the physical abuse,
verbal abuse, child neglect and orphanhood The study findings revealed that
cognitive implications of child abuse included difficulties in learning and poor
academic performance and that abused learners scored low on cognitive measures
and demonstrate lower academic achievements as shown in mark list table.
The study revealed that 70 (93.3%) teachers were trained on special needs
education while 5 teachers (6.7%) were not trained. The study also revealed that
the abused learners do not freely interact well with other children hence there is
need for intervention.
The majority of the teachers 68 (90.6%) implied that child abuse was an issue that
demanded special attention in schools as abused children were affected by a
number of issues including high dropout rate, absenteeism, malnutrition, low selfesteem,
and lack of self-efficacy.
The study also indicated that 66.6% of teachers agreed that abused learners were
isolated, depressed and violent while they were both with their peers. The study
concluded that child abuse does exist and child abuse has adverse effect on
cognitive learning. The study concluded that that all schools should have special
needs trained teachers. Abused learners do not freely interact well with other
children hence there is need for intervention. The specialty trained teachers were
able to rehabilitate the abused learners by identifying, guiding, counseling and
reporting the cases further to concerned authorities.
The researcher recommends that the government should build and equip children
homes. It also recommended that the perpetrators should be brought to book in
order to curb child abuse. That the Ministry of Education should train all teachers
on special needs education. That the government should introduce guidance and
counseling department in all primary schools in Mbooni East District. | en_US |