| dc.description.abstract | Student participation in school administration and management when properly organized and supervised, offers opportunities for developing students’ morale, cooperation, selfdiscipline, prudent leadership and intelligent followership. However, despite the existence of the student councils, most of the public secondary schools in Kiambu Sub County have experienced persistent students’ moral decadence and unrests. The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between principals’ school management practices and effectiveness of student council in public secondary schools in Kiambu Sub County, Kiambu County, Kenya. The objectives of the study were to assess the relationship between principals’ capacity building of student leaders, principals’ involvement of student leaders in the school management, principals’ provision of incentives to student leaders, and the effectiveness of the student council. The study was anchored on Path-Goal theory. The study adopted correlational research design. The study’s targeted population was composed of 15 principals, 75 head of departments and 212 student leaders from all the 15 public secondary schools in Kiambu Sub County. Through census sampling technique, all the 15 principals and 75 head of departments were sampled while 135 student leaders were selected through simple random technique. Data were collected through student leaders’ questionnaire, teachers’ questionnaire and head teachers’ interview schedule. Pilot testing involved two principals, 10 head of departments and 14 student leaders in the neighboring Kiambaa Sub County. Content and construct types of validity were ascertained through scrutiny by the two supervisors assigned to the researcher. Reliability of the teachers’ questionnaire and student leaders’ questionnaire was ascertained by test-retest technique. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. The three formulated null hypotheses were tested through the Pearson product moment correlation coefficient analysis. Qualitative data were put into broad themes for interpretation. However, some qualitative data were used verbatim in order to maintain the power of the participants’ spoken words. The study found that there was a positive very strong significant relationship between principals’ capacity building of student leaders and the effectiveness of the student council (r = 0.847, p < 0.05). Similarly, there was a positive strong significant relationship between principals’ involvement of student leaders in the school management and the effectiveness of the student council (r = 0.753, p < 0.05). However, the relationship between principals’ provision of incentives to student leaders and the effectiveness of the student council was moderate but significant (r = 0.538, p < 0.05). The study recommended the Ministry of Education to formulate more pragmatic policies that would obligate school principals to demonstrate and make a periodical report on the progress made in student leaders’ capacity building, involvement in school management and the incentives provided. | en_US |
