Influence of Special Needs Education Policy on Access to Secondary School Education By Learners With Hearing Impairments In Nandi County, Kenya

This study sought to examine influence of Special Needs Education Policy on access to secondary school education by learners with hearing impairments in Nandi County, Kenya. The study was informed by the Multiple Intelligences theory and the Dewey theory of Progressivism. The findings showed that majority of the respondents were aware of the Special Needs Education Policy Framework of 2009 and believed that the policy was being implemented. Majority of the respondents felt that the implementation of the policy had positively affected learners’ enrolment in schools but recognized that there were still several challenges that were acting as barriers to school access by learners with hearing impairments in Nandi County. Further, the respondents observed that the implementation of the Special Needs Education Policy had led to a slight improvement on transition of learners with hearing impairments from primary to secondary schools in Nandi County. The influence of the Special Needs Education Policy on retention of learners with hearing impairments was deemed to be marginally small in schools in Nandi County. The results also showed that there were cases of learners dropping out of school because of a number of reasons including financial problems, lack of motivation to be in school and cultural factors, among others. In order to improve access to school education by learners with hearing impairments, respondents gave their opinions on how the challenges could be handled including the need to train more teachers to teach learners with hearing impairments, provision of adequate learning materials and the need to fund the special units/schools for the hearing impaired in the county, among others. The study recommends that the Government should set clear guidelines on how the Special Needs Education Policy can be implemented and coordinated. The study also recommends increase of necessary support for the secondary and primary school/units for the hearing impaired in the county so as to improve access to school education by children with hearing impairments. Keywords: special needs policy, hearing impairment, access to educatio

PARENTAL INFLUENCE ON DRUG AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN KINANGO SUB-COUNTY, KENYA

The United Nations office on Drug and Crime estimates that 200 million people worldwide abuse drugs. Africa is a major supplier of drugs such as cannabis and cocaine which are the most widely abused. Large hauls of cannabis and cocaine have been discovered in East African region. In Kenya, findings show that drug and substance abuse is a major social problem. A report of survey on drug and substance abuse by NACADA, revealed that 32.4% of people aged between 18-28 years have consumed alcohol or other type of drugs and substances. Majority of secondary school students are in the age bracket 14-22 years, the group that is most affected. Drug and substance abuse is partly responsible for the riots, strikes, destruction and burning of property in secondary schools. The prevalence rate of drug abuse in Kinango Sub-County was 20.3%. The purpose of the study was to investigate parental influence on Drug and Substance Abuse among Secondary School Students in Kinango Sub-County Kwale County. Erickson’s theory on social development and Bandura’s Social Learning Theory (SLT) helped in explaining the findings of the study. A survey research design was employed for the study with the study population comprising of all secondary school students, heads of guidance and counselling departments and deputy principals in Kinango sub-county totalling 4,964 people. Four public secondary schools were selected through stratified random sampling. The sample size comprised of 4 deputy principals, 4 heads of guidance and counselling departments of the selected schools and 384 students selected by random sampling. Data was collected through questionnaires and an interview schedule. Validity of the instruments was ensured by using expert judgement of my supervisors. A mixed research methodology was used during data presentation where both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to make inferences and draw conclusions. This was done with help of SPSS version 23. The overall reliability of all the instruments had Cronbach’s alpha of 0.842 which was above the minimum threshold of 0.7. Validity was determined by; the Kaiser- Meyer-Olkim (KMO) Measures of Sampling Adequacy and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity. Values of 0.787 and 0.000 were obtained respectively, which are acceptable indexes. It was established that there is statistically significant influence of parental influence on drug and substance abuse among secondary school students in Kinango sub-County from hypothesis one (p˂ 0.05). The study recommended that parents should abstain from drugs because they are role models of their children and that guidance and counselling should be strengthen in schools.  Article visualizations