Effect of Drug and Substance-Abusing Families on Parental Participation in the Management of Students? Discipline in Public Day Secondary Schools in Kenya

Drug and substance abuse among students has been one of the main concerns of managers in secondary schools worldwide. The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of drug and substance- abusing families on parental participation in the management of students discipline in public day secondary schools in Kitui County, Kenya. The hypothesis was there is no significant relationship between parents drug and substance abuse and parental participation in management of students discipline. The sample comprised 70 head teachers, 70 PTA chairpersons and 354 Form three students. The instruments were questionnaires and interview guide. The questionnaires were validated by conducting a pre- test while a test-re-test technique was used to test reliability. Quantitative data was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The significance level was alpha = 0.05. The results showed that the calculated chi- square was 133.063 whereas the level of significance was 0.000 which is less than 0.05. Therefore, the null hypothesis was rejected at more than 95 % level of confidence. It was concluded that parents misuse of drugs and substances significantly affect parental participation in management of students discipline. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that parents should stop exposing their children to drugs and substances of abuse and instead role model positive behaviour in order to control drug and substance abuse among students. This paper is an extract of a study conducted in the year 2016 and 2017 in public day secondary schools in Kitui County, Kenya.