Selected Factors Affecting the Enhancement of Pastoral Program Instruction in Primary Schools in Kenya: A Link between PPI and Religious Education in Primary Schools

Abstract

Pastoral Program Instruction (PPI) is a school based and coordinated intervention to help individual learners improve their social, emotional and behavioral skills. All primary schools in Kenya teach PPI weekly. Inadequate implementation in schools has raised a concern from various stakeholders. This paper unearths selected factors that hamper the enhancement of PPI in public primary schools which included specific content covered, use of teaching and instructional resources, the right teaching strategies and in-service training offered to pastoral instructors. It used descriptive survey research design. Using simple random sampling, 47 head teachers drawn from 47public primary schools out of a total 152 public primary schools in Kabartonjo Sub County in Baringo County, Kenya, participated in the study. A structured interview schedule was used to collect data for the study which determined the frequency of the responses of the four research objectives. Recommendations and conclusions were based on them. The results showed that teachers did not use specific content when administering PPI programmes, the Bible is the predominant teaching and learning resource, the existing books in use do not have proper guidelines for instruction, no specific strategies adopted for teaching, and teachers were not re-trained to teach PPI. Therefore teachers should take PPI serious and should use the initial training attained at teacher training colleges, they should also improvise instructional resources and teaching strategies to have PPI efficient. Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development to design specific content to be used in all schools and teachers be given re-training so as to implement it effectively in schools. Young people require this instruction for spiritual nourishment and for moral uprightness to cater for individual learners' needs.