Abstract

Under what conditions will discipline policy in education be successfully implemented in Malawian secondary schools in the context of human rights and good governance? A study of some selected secondary schools in Central East Education Division allows us explore that question. Different stakeholders have been involved to provide valuable information to the study included are the school authorities, officials from Ministry of Education both at divisional offices and headquarters, teachers and students themselves. Other relevant stakeholders dealing with settling disputes and restoring justice were also drawn into the study included were the courts, ombudsman and human rights institutions. Information about this implementation of the discipline policy has come from interviews, questionnaires, focus group discussions, observation and several documentaries found in schools and other relevant institutions. Using purposeful sampling for selecting research sites and stratified sampling for the participants, 30 students and 10 teachers responded to a questionnaire from each of the four sampled secondary schools namely Kasungu, Dowa, Nkhotakota and Salima while 10 students and two (a head teacher and a deputy head teacher) participated in the focus group discussions and the interview processes respectively. The study has found out that there still exist more challenges in implementing the discipline policy in the schools studied despite the fact that the head teachers have been trained to streamline human rights in decision making as they administer schools. The findings drawn from this study will help to illustrate a model of implementation of education policies that can be used for planning, managing or evaluating by different stakeholders intending to embark on policy formulation, implementation and evaluation.

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School	: School of Education
Issued Date	: 2009

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