Examining Challenges Faced by Secondary School Students in Kakamega County, Kenya in Their Application of Life Skills for Conflict Management among Themselves

Abstract

Life Skills Education (LSE) is internationally recognized for equipping people with abilities to adapt to daily challenges. Students face heightened peer group interaction making interpersonal conflicts rampant as they try to assert themselves while also seeking cooperation. Life skills become prerequisite for conflict management. It is disturbing that despite mainstreaming LSE in Kenya's school curriculum in 2003, students continue to experience heightened relationship-based conflicts with insurmountable consequences that jeopardize learning as revealed in a survey of schools in Kakamega County, Kenya. This paper examined the challenges faced by secondary school students in Kakamega County in their application of life skills for conflict management among themselves with the intention of providing insight into what can make LSE more proactive in conflict management. The research was a Descriptive Survey that employed the Ex Post Facto Design. Interviews, questionnaires, Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and observation checklists were used to collect primary data. Probability and non-probability sampling techniques were used to select the 456 respondents including students, school administrators and sponsors, LSE and Guidance and Counselling (G & C) teachers from four Sub Counties in Kakamega County. Study findings confirmed that LSE can indeed equip students with life skills for conflict management. An examination of the students' conflict management styles to determine whether they precipitated conflict or contributed to conflict resolution revealed two key factors that are determinants of the choices made by the students; the desire to be with and like peers and the fear of solitude. This made students avoid compromise, collaborate or be accommodative. It also determined their decision to refrain from competitive tendencies. While students thought they used these techniques for conflict management, the administrators and LSE teachers viewed it differently; they viewed it as collusion by peers to get away with mischief.  The views of the administrators and LSE teachers were that students mainly used avoidance and competition techniques because most of them were inept in the face of conflict. Many students confessed that when faced with conflict they did not know what to do and conflict situations left them stressed/embarrassed/lonely/useless or angry. This revelation enshrines the course of LSE for secondary school students. The research recommends that teachers and sponsors should monitor challenges that students face so that they play an advisory role to the students in a free and friendly environment that builds the student's trust in them. Students need to brainstorm on areas of conflict and challenges they face in conflict management so that they together take a stance on ways of handling these conflicts with the involvement of their teachers. Parents who are a key source of life skills should build self awareness, self esteem and self confidence in their children.