Church sponsor involvement in school development. A survey of public secondary schools in Homabay Sub-County, Homabay County, Kenya

Abstract

Church sponsorship has resulted to tremendous development of education institutions worldwide. The cardinal role of chaplains is the spiritual development of the school community and ensuring that students are shaped in line with Christian values, morals and standards. However, despite the fact that all the 25 public secondary schools in Homabay Sub County are affiliated to various church denominations, most of them are characterized by dilapidated buildings, perennial students ‘unrests, teenage pregnancies, use of illegal drugs and alcohol, and low academic performance. The purpose of the study was to examine the church sponsors’ involvement in school development in public secondary schools in Homabay Sub-County, Homabay County, Kenya. The objectives of the study were to find out the spiritual nourishment services provided by the church sponsors, to examine the church sponsors’ provision of guidance and counselling and to establish the extent to which the religious sponsors provide support in teaching and learning resources in public secondary schools in Homabay Sub County. The study was premised on structural functionalism theory and adopted descriptive survey research design. The study targeted 25 principals, 333 teachers, 50 Christian students’ group leaders, and 25 church sponsors’ representatives. Census and simple sampling techniques were used to select 25 principals, 100 teachers, 25 Christian students’ group leaders, and 25 church sponsors’ representatives. Data was collected through the teachers’ questionnaire, christian student group leaders’ interview schedule, the principals’ interview schedule, and the church sponsor representative interview schedule. The validity of the research instruments was ascertained through scrutiny by the two university supervisors assigned to the researcher. Reliability of the teachers’ questionnaire was determined by calculating the Cronbach alpha. A coefficient of 0.81 was obtained. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics while qualitative data were put into broad themes for analysis. The study found that while provision of spiritual nourishment services in some schools was relatively consistent, it was erratic in over half of the schools. Further, most of the church representatives had no capacity to authoritatively guide and council students about sexuality, use of drugs, substance and alcohol, psychosocial issues, and responsible use of the social media. The church sponsors’ provision of teaching and learning resources was found to have dwindled significantly. This study recommends that the government through the Ministry of Education engage professional chaplains for each public secondary schools and follow a uniform curriculum. The study finding on the extent to which the students are exposed to pastoral care services geared to enhance their spiritual, social and moral development might influence policy review by education stakeholders.