The perceptions of parents and teachers on the use of Corporal Punishment in Pre-Primary Institutions: A survey of Eldoret Municipality, Uasin Gishu County, Kenya

Abstract

The study investigated the perceptions of parents and teachers on the use of corporal punishment in pre-primary institutions. The objectives of the study was to investigate the attitudes of parents and teachers towards corporal punishment ban in pre-schools; to investigate whether the level of education of parents and teachers had an influence on the use of corporal punishment and also find out instances when corporal punishment was used. The study located itself on Structural Functionalism theory which views culture as the expression of the totality of an individual and every material object, language, idea, religion, belief and custom fulfils a vital function in maintaining the whole society. Reinforcement theory explains that social behaviour is governed by external events; these events can reinforce, punish or extinguish behaviour. A descriptive survey design was used. Stratified sampling was used to select the pre-schools; simple random sampling was applied to select all the teachers in the sampled pre-schools. Incidental sampling was employed to select parents of the sampled schools. Data was collected through questionnaires. The data was analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The findings indicated that both parents and teachers perceived negatively the outlawing of corporal punishment, the level of education had no influence on the use of corporal punishment for both parents and teachers and instances when corporal punishment was used by both parents and teachers were non-academic. The government and specifically the policymakers in the ministry of education will be the main beneficiaries of this study. It will come in handy when they are interrogating educational policies and long held values in the society. The study recommended that the government investigates why parents prefer corporal punishment to other methods of behaviour modification. The government should also rethink the teacher training programmes and the teachers' role in the education system. Since non-academic offences attracted higher instances of corporal punishment the government should rethink the ban from schools to homes. The research should be replicated in other levels of school. A comparative study on the impact of the various methods of modifying deviant behaviour should be done.