ABSTRACT

The study sought to establish the extent to which teaching of Life Skills Education has reduced violence in public secondary schools. It was guided by the SelfDetermination Theory and the Theory of Institutional Change. Literature review was limited for Kenyan situation and relevant information from other countries was therefore used to determine what constituted school violence and how those countries solved it. This literature showed that in the developed world, school violence was both physical and psychological. It also revealed that Life Skills Education had been used to reduce violence in Europe and that it was a recommended approach for the reduction of violence in Africa. The study adopted the descriptive survey design. Public secondary schools were sampled using simple random method and the same was used to sample form three students. The school principals, teachers of Life Skills Education and form three students were purposefully selected. The tools of this study were the questionnaire, observation schedule and document observation schedule. These were tested in a pilot study and Cronbach‟s coefficient alpha method was used to determine their internal consistency. They were considered reliable because they yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.9 for the questionnaire and 0.8 for the observation schedules. The data collected was organized according to themes, analyzed into percentages and correlations tested using Pearson Coefficient Correlation. The study established that the level of violence reduced according to the seniority of class in Kieni West sub - county. It also established that public secondary schools were potentially violent. It further established that most of violence witnessed in public secondary schools was triggered by desire to revenge. Psychological violence was reported to be the most common type of violence in public secondary schools in Kieni West sub-county and that this type of violence came in many forms such as use of insults, spreading of malicious rumours against the victim, social isolation and hiding of other students‟ items. However, it was very discreet and was seldom discovered by the school administrations unless students reported it. The research revealed that the girls adored the bullies in their schools and that they had a higher probability of fighting back if provoked to violence. The boys on the other side avoided the company of bullies and would mainly seek justice from the school administration if provoked to violence. The study therefore concluded that the girl was more likely to be violent while the boy was likely to avoid violence. The study also established that there existed a strong positive correlation between L.S.E lesson attendance and the reduction of violence in schools. There also existed a strong negative correlation between teacher preparation for teaching L.S.E and school violence. It was therefore concluded that teaching of L.S.E was an effective weapon against school violence. However, L.S.E was not given enough attention in public secondary schools. This study recommended that all teachers of LSE should be trained to teach the subject and recognition of their work in the subject. L.S.E should also be allocated time on the Time Table during teaching hours.