The Relationship between Welfare and Discipline of Secondary School Students in Sheema District, Uganda

Abstract

Discipline of students has been reported to be pivorted on the state of the welfare of students itself across the world(Olszewski-Kubilius & Corwith, 2018). Besides, it is the responsibility of all school stakeholders to ensure an ordered and safe environment where students feel secure and become successful and confident learners and where all members of the school community are treated fairly and with respect (Bates & Bailey, 2018). In Bostwana, the secondary school had their image marred by acts of low students’ discipline. Some students died and other became blind after they broke into the school science laboratory and consumed toxic amount of methanol and ethanol (Kilonzo, 2013). In East Africa, particularly Kenya has faced increased cases of indiscipline (Ngwokabuenui, 2015). Some of the acts of indiscipline experienced in Kenya are truancy, bullying, destruction of school property, physical violence by students on fellow students and on teachers. Until now, poor welfare has continued to be the most contributing factor to low student’s discipline in secondary schools (Justice, 2016). Thus, evidence adduced reveals that the upcoming low discipline of students is a universal problem. In Uganda there are two prominent-categories of school foundations exist; faith based and non faith-based and welfare is at the heart of understanding of the discipline of students in a given institution. Yearly, cases of student indiscipline are reported countrywide in schools of both foundations. From 2010-2016, a wave of student strikes rocked the whole country. Besides, the schools which experienced serious student indiscipline were reported to have issues related to the differences in the status of students’ welfare. The situation above makes it apparent that low discipline is normally sparked off by lack of requisite strategies of managing students. Notably, even the students in the-faith based schools in which high levels of discipline of students were exhibited in the olden days, strikes were reported. Besides, Sheema district experienced violent strikes in secondary schools in 2014 which included burning of dormitories, breaking of windowpanes and wooden doors, hunger strikes among others (Tumuhairwe, 2015). There has been a notable disparity in the discipline of secondary school students in Sheema district (Mugasha, 2013). Widespread strikes in Sheema district led to the closure of secondary schools of which only two schools had not striked indicating that almost all the secondary 3 schools in Sheema district striked. Besides, the strikes left a lot of damages in property; for example, students in schools like Sacred Heart Mushanga caused extensive damages to school property after three arson incidents. A study conducted by Niwamanya (2016) revealed that discipline of students in Sheema district during the period between 2013 and 2014 was very much wanting. Although Parents Teachers Associations meetings were conducted in order to mitigate future strikes, no known study has been conducted to determine the status of welfare and its relationship with discipline of students. Therefore, it is against this background that the researcher investigated how welfare affects discipline among the secondary schools in Sheema district.