VALUE ADDITION TO THE HOLISTIC DEVELOPMENT OF STUDENTS IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN KENYA: A CASE OF NANDI COUNTY

Abstract

Education processes should lead to the cumulative acquisition of knowledge, skills, and values needed for holistic development. However, the current assessment practices in the Kenyan education system focus on the cognitive part of learning at the expense of the affective and psychomotor domains. Schools should, therefore, implement methods for assessing learners' potential and the crucial elements of holistic development. This study examined the value-addition of learners' holistic development in different public secondary schools in Kenya. The study's objectives were to determine value addition on student academic performance, talents, and life skills by different categories of public secondary schools in Nandi County. Holistic learning and Multiple Intelligence Theories guided the study. The study adopted a post-positivist research paradigm and a mixed research design that used questionnaires and document analysis to collect information from School principals and Form four students. The study's target population was 192 secondary schools, 192 Principals, and 10,499 students. The respondents were stratified into National, Extra- County, County, and Sub- County Schools. The study used stratified, proportionate, and purposive sampling to select respondents who included 144 principals from 2 National schools, 4 Extra County schools, 26 county schools, and 112 sub-county schools. Multiple regression analysis determined the value-added to academic performance, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test determined the value-added on talents, and one-way ANOVA was used to determine the value-added of life skills. The residual values of multiple regression analysis were National, Extra- County, County, and sub-county were –2.541, -3.152, -2.690, and -4.094, respectively. These residuals show that in all the categories, there was no value addition to the learners' academic performance in the selected schools. However, all school categories improved in talent (P.000), including volleyball, basketball, athletics, music, and drama. Netball improved in county schools but not in extra-county or sub-county schools. In terms of life skills, all school types added value to critical thinking. This study has suggested that schools adopt a robust assessment method to show how they have holistically added value to the learner. The process should examine the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains and the physical and social domains of the student's development. Furthermore, the Ministry of Education should cascade the competency-based curriculum introduced recently at the lower primary level to all levels of the education system.