Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the role of the Secondary School Discipline Policy in combating School Related Gender Based Violence in selected district boarding secondary schools in Central West Education Division. The study used phenomenology as the main strategy and employed qualitative research method because the problem required in-depth understanding of the experiences of participants from their own perspective and in their natural setting. Purposive sampling was employed to select five district boarding schools. Participants included 54 learners, 10 prefects, 5 deputy head teachers, 10 boarding masters/mistresses, matrons and 10 teachers from the discipline committee. Data was generated through in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and document analysis. The study results indicated that participants had a good understanding of SRGBV and that forms of SRGBV varied from school to school and between male and female learners. The findings also revealed that the only structure to handle indiscipline cases was the discipline committee. The other finding was that cultural influences and lack of SRGBV discipline procedures among others caused challenges to handle SRGBV using the Secondary School Discipline policy. The study concluded that the discipline policy was not able to effectively combat SRGBV because it had no guidelines for handling School Related Gender Based Violence. Finally, the study suggested a similar study to be conducted in all the education divisions and a comparative study on the extent to which different forms of SRGBV affect victims.

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School	: School of Education
Issued Date	: 2017

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