Educating for integral personal development in the catholic secondary schools in Nairobi archdiocese, Kenya
Résumé
The study set out to survey the understanding of education for integral personal development of students in Catholic secondary schools in the Archdiocese of Nairobi and to assess the efforts made and challenges encountered in the bid to facilitate this development. Schools were sampled to cover a representation of the varieties of Catholic schools in the Archdiocese. In the field research, questionnaires were issued to Form IV students and interviews carried out with some key personnel in the sampled schools. A Focus Group Discussion (FGD) was carried out with a group of students in each of the schools.
The findings of the research show that there is a common understanding of integral personal development of students, constitutive of developing the various elements or facets of a person's capacities and many efforts are made towards achieving this. However, lack of cooperation between the various stakeholders in the schools, and overwhelming pressure to prepare students for examinations often sabotage these efforts.
The study recommends the building up of the community in the school, with conscious, ongoing and sustained recourse to Christian and African anthropologies as reference points in responding to the challenge to mediate integral development of the students and all members of the school community. It also recommends that the Catholic Church in Kenya endeavors to distinctively define Kenya Catholic Education philosophy and institute mechanisms of its cultivation and sustenance across the schools