Sources of the Drugs Abused by Girls in Secondary Schools in Nakuru County, Kenya

Abstract

Abstract According to a report by the Ministry of Gender, the parity of substance use between boys and girls could be occurring due to changes in girls & #39; social behaviour. The increase in drug abuse among girls could have been attributed to the increase in the reported in girls’ schools. Majority of these cases of indiscipline among students were number of indiscipline cases among girls in secondary schools. According to Ministry of Education Report, 2016, there were over 120 cases of schools’ unrests, of which more than 50 were associated with drug-abuse. All these directly or indirectly affected the learning process of girl-child education, therefore the study sought to assess the sources of the drugs abused by girls in secondary schools in Nakuru County, Kenya. Bandura (1971) based the study on social learning theory. The study adopted descriptive research design with location of the study being Nakuru County, Kenya, which comprised eleven sub-counties. The study targeted Form Three girls, Deputy Principals, Parents Association (PA) representatives and guidance and counselling teachers in girls’ secondary schools in Nakuru County. The study targeted 371 girls in Form Three from 74 girls’ secondary schools in Nakuru County comprising of 17 public and 57 private secondary schools. The study selected 44 girls’ schools representing 60 % of 74-targeted schools. Stratified random sampling was used to get sampled schools from each sub-county. Slovin’s formula was used to get a sample size of 371 girls from the targeted population of 5, 188 Form Three girls. Primary data was collected using questionnaires, interview schedules, and focused discussion groups. Questionnaire method was used to obtain information from students, guidance and counselling teachers and Parents Association (P. A) representatives because the students’ number was large and Parents were not always in the schools.