| dc.description.abstract | The Kenya government banned Mental Harassment in schools as stipulated in The Basic Education Act, 2013. This was
as a result of the recommendations of the Task Force on Student Discipline and Unrests in Secondary Schools, which
revealed that Mental Harassment was one of the major contributors to indiscipline among students. Despite the ban, the
level of indiscipline in schools had remained a major concern in Ugenya, Gem and Siaya sub-counties, where cases of
indiscipline for the years 2010 – 2015 were 514 (51%) higher than those experienced in Siaya County, 694 (44%) and
national, 51,600 (42.7%) for the same period. It is important to note that mental harassment is one of the strategies still
used in managing students despite the ban and the fact that it was found wanting and counterproductive at a time when
discipline cases among students had hit the ceiling; in the early part of this 21st Century. The high level of indiscipline
had been characterized by students’ threats against school authorities, arson, vandalism, physical attack on teachers,
unrests, strikes, complaints of high-handedness, drug abuse, sexual harassment and terrorist threats. All these
infractions were mainly targeted at teachers, school administrators and school prefects. Mental harassment as a
strategy of managing student discipline involves: reprimanding, use of abusive and belittling language, sarcasm, sexual
harassment, name calling, shouting, verbal warnings, insults, detention, withdrawal of privileges, scolding and
unwarranted criticisms that inflict psychological pain or leads to psychological torture. Mental harassment is mainly
used to curb infractions like absenteeism, truancy, failure to do homework, lateness, laziness, poor academic
performance, insubordination, non-adherence to dress code, noisemaking, lack of participation in class work and
disobedience. Mental harassment was outlawed through enactment of the Basic Education Act 2013, The Constitution of
Kenya 2010 and The Children Act 2001 based on reports on school indiscipline that had identified mental harassment as
one of the major causes of students’ indiscipline. The study established that there was a strong, positive and significant
relationship between the level of mental harassment ban and students’ discipline. The level of mental harassment ban
was 60%, while the level of students discipline was 40%. Mental harassment ban accounted for 68.5% of the variation in
students’ level of discipline. Regression analysis revealed that the increase in mental harassment ban increased student
discipline | en_US |
