School safety and emergency preparedness: an assessment of public boarding secondary schools in Nandi North district, Kenya

Abstract

The study assessed the state of safety in secondary schools in Nandi North district. This has been motivated by the persistent media reports on insecurity and school violence, a fact that projects a grim picture that Kenyan schools are not the safe havens that the public might have thought them to be. The main objective of the study was to establish the safety measures available and determine the level of safety preparedness of public boarding secondary schools in Nandi North District, while the specific objectives were: To establish the safety measures available in schools; to assess the level of awareness and the skills-levels of staff and students; to identify the challenges faced in the implementation of safety measures in schools and to identify the strategies devised for future enhancement of school safety. The study was based on the Chaos Theory which offers lessons for managing periods of extreme instability in a system. Descriptive survey design was employed. Stratified and purposive sampling techniques were used to determine the sample size. Respondents included head teachers, teachers, students and security officers. The research instruments used were questionnaire, interview schedule and observation checklist. A pilot study was administered to verify the validity and reliability of the instruments. Data obtained was analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Presentation of data is in form of tables, charts, graphs, frequencies, and percentages. Microsoft Excel and the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) program aided in data analysis. The findings revealed that most schools were not adequately prepared for emergencies both in terms of planning and equipment. For instance only 33.3% of teachers had been trained on firefighting while 33.8% had a safety policy in their schools. The study confirmed that safety policy and training predicted school safety since the R 2 and adjusted R 2 value of 0.769 and 0.787 respectively both indicated that over 70% of the variance in the dependent variable can be explained by the regression model. The t test results for the individual regression coefficient were as follows: Safety policies (t =11.52, p<.05) and training (t = 2.25, p<.05) indicating that the variables were statistically significant at 0.05 level. Inadequate finance was cited as the main challenge that hindered the implementation of the safety policy. In light of these findings, it is recommended that the government should emphasize frequent assessment of schools by QASOs so as to monitor and evaluate the implementation of the safety policy, enforce awareness and training programs and provide adequate funds for the purchase of safety equipment in schools.