EFFECTS OF CHILD ABUSE ON PERFORMANCE OF PRIMARY SCHOOL IN KAPYEMIT WARD, TURBO CONSTITUENCY, UASIN-GISHU COUNTY.





BY
ERICK NYAKUNDI
KIS/03013/14




A RESEARCH PROJECTSUBMITED TO THE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES, DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY IN THE PARTIAL FULFILMENT FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF SOCIOLOGY



MAY, 2014

DECLARATION

I, the undersigned, declare that this project is my original work and that it has not been presented in any other university or institution for academic credit.

Signature...............................................­..... Date...................................
ERICK NYAKUNDI
KIS/03013/14






SUPERVISOR
This project has been submitted for examination with my approval as university supervisor
DR. W. O. ABUYA
Signature..................................................­.. Date....................................




DEDICATION
I dedicate this work to my Dad, Mom, my sister Lydia and my lovely brother Dun who contributed in one way or another to make this project to be successful.


















ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to thank all individuals who contributed and sacrificed their time towards completion of this project.
To my supervisor, for the guidance and support in the development of this research project, His advice and criticism made this project what it is.
Thanks to colleagues and friends for their suggestions, advice and encouragement. To all of you may God bless you abundantly for your tireless effort.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents Page
DECLARATION i
DEDICATION ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS iv
LIST OF TABLES vii
LIST OF FIGURE viii
ABSTRACT ix
CHAPTER ONE 10
STUDY OVERVIEW AND STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 10
1.1 Background of the Study 10
1.2 Research Questions 13
1.3 Research Objectives 13
1.4 Justification of the Study 13
1.5 Significance of the Study 14
1.6 Scope of the Study 15
1.6.1Assumptions of the Study 16
CHAPTER TWO 17
LITERATURE REVIEW 17
2.1 Introduction 17
2.2 Common Forms of Child Abuse 17
2.2.1 Child ****** Abuse 17
2.2.2 Physiological or Emotional Abuse 17
2.2.3 Physical Abuse 18
2.2.4 Child Neglect or Abandonment 18
2.2.4.1 Physical Neglect 19
2.2.4.2 Educational Neglect 19
2.2.4.3 Medical Neglect 19
2.2.5 Child Fatalities 20
2.3 How Child Abuse Affects Academic Performance 20
2.3.1 Child Abuse and Academic Performance 20
2.3.2 Child Abuse and School Image 23
2.3.3 Child Abuse and Dropout Rate 25
2.4 Strategies that Schools can Employ to Curb Child Abuse 26
2.4.1 Role of Public Regulation 26
2.4.1.1 Nurturing and Attachment 27
2.4.1.2 Social Connections 27
2.5 Theoretical Framework 27
2.5.1 Learning Theory 28
2.5.1.1 Relationship with the Study 28
2.5.2 Family Dysfunction Theory 29
2.5.2.1 Relationship with the Study 29
CHAPTER THREE 30
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY 30
3.0 Introduction 30
3.1 Site Description 30
3.2 Research Design 30
3.3.1 Target Population 30
3.3.2 Sample Size and Sampling Procedure 31
3.4 Description of Research Instruments 32
3.4.1 Research Instrument 32
3.4.1.1 Questionnaire 32
3.5 Data Collection Procedure 32
3.5.1 Validity and Reliability of Research Instruments 33
3.5.1.1 Reliability of Research Instruments 33
3.5.1.2 Validity 33
3.6 Data Analysis and Presentation 33
CHAPTER FOUR 35
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS 35
4.0 Introduction 35
4.1 Background Information 35
4.1.1 Age of the Respondents 35
4.1.2 *** of the Respondents 35
4.1.3 Education Level of the Respondents 36
4.1.4 Marital Status 36
4.2 Specific Information 37
4.2.1 Effects of Child Abuse on Academic Performance 37
4.2.2 How Child Abuse Affects Dropout Rate of Students in School 38
4.2.3 Proposed Strategies that Schools can Employ to Curb Child Abuse 41
CHAPTER FIVE 43
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 43
5.0 Introduction 43
5.1 Summary of the findings 43
5.2 Discussion of the Findings 44
5.3 Conclusion 45
5.4 Recommendations 46
REFERENCES 47

LIST OF TABLES & FIGURES
Table 3.1 Target population 32
Table 3.1 Sample size 33
Table 4.1 Age of the Respondents 36
Table 4.2 *** of the Respondents 37
Table 4.3 Education Level of the Respondents 37
Table 4.4 Marital Status 38
Table 4.5 Effects of Child Abuse on Academic Performance 38
Table 4.6 How Child Abuse Affects Dropout Rate of Students in School 40
Figure 4.1 Views of the Pupils on Abuse 41
Table 4.7 Proposed Strategies that Schools can Employ to Curb Child Abuse 42





















ABSTRACT
Child abuse is the physical, ****** or emotional maltreatment or neglect of a child or children. The consequences of child maltreatment can be profound and may endure long after the abuse or neglect occurs. The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of child abuse on school performance in Primary Schools in Kapyemit ward, Uasin-Gishu County. The objectives of the study were: To assess the impacts of child abuse on academic performance; to determine the effects of child abuse on schools image, to identify the impacts of child abuse on pupil drop out rate, to investigate the effects of child abuse on pupil transition rate. The study employed a survey study design. The study targeted 160 respondents which includes; 5 Head Teachers, 40 Teachers, 70 Pupils and 35 parents of which a sample size of 48 was obtained from using 30%. Purposive sampling technique was used in selecting the head teachers while simple random sampling technique will be used to select the teachers, Pupils and parents who formed the respondents of the study. Questionnaires and interview schedules were used as data collection instruments. Data was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively and presented in form of tables, percentages and frequency. The study helped in the understanding of the effects of child abuse on the school performance, the realization of the roles parents and teachers play in the curbing of child abuse among pupils and raising awareness on the same.
 
CHAPTER ONE
STUDY OVERVIEW AND STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
1.1 Background of the Study
Child abuse is the physical, ****** or emotional maltreatment or neglect of a child or children. The consequences of child maltreatment can be profound and may endure long after the abuse or neglect occurs. The effects can appear in childhood, adolescence, or adulthood, and may affect various aspects of an individual's development (e.g., physical, cognitive, psychological, and behavioral). These effects range in consequence from minor physical injuries, low self-esteem, attention disorders, and poor peer relations to severe brain damage, extremely violent behavior, and death. In extreme cases, child abuse affects the performance of schools in the affected region (Daniel, 1978).
Performance refers to how students deal with their academic studies and how they cope with or accomplish different tasks given to them by their teachers. Performance is also the ability of a school to portray a good image which can influence the public (Decastro, 1978). There are several factors that influence the performance of a school at large, however, there is a critical factor that most researchers have avoided to discuss, and child abuse has been a crucial factor that has contributed to children’s dismal performance. Apart from children’s personal intelligence, child abuse is among then key factors contributing to poor performance of learners. Child abuse can lead to school dropping, emotional trauma or can even be fatal, hence destructing or even terminating the educational ambitions of a child. (Harris, 2005)
Worldwide, according to World Health Organization (WHO, 2000) approximately 40 million children are subjected to child abuse each year. According to Human Rights Watch (2001) about 30% of all severely disabled children relegated to special homes in the Ukraine died before they reached 18 years of age. UNICEF estimates that two million children died as a result of armed conflict during a recent 10-year period and that another six million were injured or disabled. In Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, over 6.5 million children annually are exposed to unwanted ****** materials over the internet; over 1.7 million of these report distress over exposure to these materials. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department for Children and Families (DCF) define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or other caregiver that results in harm, potential for harm, or threat of harm to a child. Child abuse can occur in a child's home, or in the organizations, schools or communities the child interacts with. Each year, approximately one million children around the world are introduced into commercial ****** exploitation despite this problem; these developed countries have put measures to curb the vice. Rehabilitation schools have been formed and introduction of counseling centers as well. Despite the prevalence of child abuse in this developed nations they narrowly affect the academic performance since there are organizations put in place to curb the situation e.g. child associations, guidance and counseling institutions, and school based counseling programs (Giles, 2001)
Concern for victims of child abuse in Africa expressed by the African network of the International Society for The Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN) which gave five main presentations of child abuse: child labor, street wandering, ****** abuse, child battering and abandonment (Elma, 1977). Child labor according to the international labor organization (ILO), about 10 million children less than 15years in Africa are in formal employment, working long hours with poor pay and are exposed to substantial health hazards. Wandering of children refers to children, usually unkempt and with delinquent propensities, living rough in town. The reasons for children taking to the street remain poorly understood particularly in relation to factors in the child rather than parental hostility and economic (Dubowitz, 2002)
****** abuse is another. For example, arranged under-age marriages are common in some parts of the continent and doubt was often expressed as to whether a young girl fully gave consent to being betrothed (Galdsone, 1965). Prevalence rates in Africa are very difficult to ascertain because of the fear of disclosure by victims and lack of proper documentation. Most of the girls by reasons of shame fear or surprisingly respect for their usually older perpetrators. Physical battering is also eminent. Physical abuse of children is widely claimed to berate in the third world; however, there are anecdotes from east Africa skeletal frame or localized body areas of all first attendees aged 0-12 years at this hospital during the four-year period 1 January 1987 to 31 December 1990 (Garbarino, 1975). Sixty-nine of these reports reveals evidence of multiple bone fractures wither without evidence of rib or skull fracture. Abandonment of children to roam around the streets in what we call street children is also eminent in Africa, though valid and adequate information on abandonment are difficult to obtain due mainly to failure of offending parents to show up out of guilt, shame, judicial repercussions or a combination of these. However, some euro-American missionaries identified inter alia breech birth. (Erickson, 2003)
Child protection measures in Kenya are currently not implemented effectively and fully (Galdstone, 1965). Compliance with such legislation would increase if the magnitude of the problem and better knowledge about the factors that put children at risk was available. Additionally, involving stakeholders, especially agencies charged with protection, as well as involving affected children, will highlight the issues and thereby promote adherence to protection policies. Kenyan children, child activists and children organizations are pinning their hopes on the implementation of the Children’s Act to improve the lot of the nation’s youth. The Act, which came into effect on 1 March 2002, puts in place full safeguards for the rights of the child. Its passage was a giant stride in harmonizing the national laws with international agreements which Kenya has signed such as the UN Conventions on the Rights of the Child (CRC, 2002)
There is hope that the new legislation will dramatically change the inattention, neglect and abuse towards child rights. The Act outlaws any form discrimination of children, and forbids Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), child prostitution, and child labor, among other forms of abuse. The Children’s Act has immensely improved the lives of many Kenyan children plagued with high illiteracy levels, frequent **** cases and child labor since it guarantees children the right to health and medical care, provision of which is the responsibility of the parents, the extended family and the government (Erickson, 2005).
Cases of child abuse in Uasin-Gishu region have been so eminent in the recent years ((Kenya Media Report, 2004). In the year 2010 and the year 2011, there was a program started to rehabilitate this behavior. This problem is clearly evident when you first arrive in Eldoret town, it is among the towns in the country with the highest number of abandoned children who keep on moving from one Centre to another seeking help from passersby. Parents have developed behaviors of abandoning their children and deliberately sending them to the town so that they can benefit from their borrowing. So to say this has led to child labor in this region. High profile cases of school dropouts have been recorded regarding the environs of this region. Young school children from different locations in Eldoret converge in town to persuade people to offer them financial assistance. Some attend school in numbered days and decide to spend some good number of days out of school.
The communities and societies around tend to assume this situation and term it as norm. A few who might seem concerned lack cooperation from the rest. This has adversely affected the performance of most of schools, hence leading to poor living standards of the people and a poisoned future of a young citizen. The problem has affected learners in regions like many areas in Uasin-Gishu County. It has really affected child development and affected their attendance and performance in school. Little intervention measures has been taken to advocate the holistic development of the children. It was to this reason that the researcher conducted the research in the named above region
1.2 Research Questions
The study was guided by the following questions;
1) What is the effect of child abuse on the academic performance of students in Kapyemit Ward?  
2) What are some of the proposed strategies that schools can employ to curb child abuse?
1.3 Research Objectives
The study was guided by the following research objectives;
1) To identify the effect of child abuse on the academic performance of students in Kapyemit Ward.
2) To identify proposed strategies that can be employed to help curb child abuse.
1.4 Justification of the Study
It is becoming increasingly difficult to separate child abuse prevention into separate categories. For instance, strategies on the societal level include increasing the “value” of children, increasing the economic self-sufficiency of families, discouraging corporal punishment and other forms of violence, making health care more accessible and affordable, expanding and improving coordination of social services, improving the identification and treatment of psychological problems and alcohol and drug abuse, providing more affordable child care and preventing the birth of unwanted children.
Very little analysis has been done to estimate the total cost of preventing child abuse and neglect or the long-term social costs of not preventing it. There is now a move to situate child abuse and neglect within the continuum of intervention which addresses multiple aspects of family behaviors. The efficacy of tackling portions of the problem of child abuse apart from broader societal needs is not known. And, perhaps prevention can only come in tandem with efforts to reduce poverty, improve health care and make children’s issues a national priority. However, despite these constraints, evaluations of prevention programs can be improved by coming to terms with definitions of key varia

The birth-throes of adulthood is alteration unto its/our own state, the formation and growth of neural connections straining our minds, the brain adapting to phenomena in space and time, deeming it experience. It is this process I reckon to be consciousness.

It was only after adolescence I could begin to understand qualia. During this period my brain was busy going through the teenage 'motions of neurochemical upheaval. My mind was far too young to understand what it intuitively grasped. Something was memorable, meaningless, its qualities stuck in mind. This was how I began to understand qualia, meaningless memories which I treasured beyond measure without knowing why, the essence of nostalgia.

During this time emotion was a mysterious thing I could only feel as coming from my own experiencing ego, not as something occurring between two animals which one alone can never understand (though the narcissist might dispute that). Take love, an attachment, certainly an altered-state, a modifier of behavior, the serotonergic system implicit in its proper function (and if we're lucky, some oxytocin).

We'll hold this for further discussion.
Now for something mildly intresting.

My introduction and use of psychoactives was typical if quite comprehensive (and of course it felt 'special', I still feel this). Fascinated by what substances could do to elicit qualia (though no doubt unable to elucidate this) I lost myself thoroughly, great attracted to the culture around them. This accompanying ethos I could not hope to comprehend took me in its stride. At first I had no reservations as to indulgence, which taught me a few hard lessons. Later I would catch a rare glimpse of this ethos in its motions, gleaming it on occasion.

These times gave rise to specific feeling, recreation followed by reading into the neuroscience brought about a knowledge of some sort. The neurochemicals represented what my experiences were founded upon but not what they were.
I knew them in theory and from practice upon my consciousness,
This knowledge stayed with me long after my 'research' had finished. I would recognise familiar mental sensations in occasional sober interactions, minor alterations in mind brought on by certain foodstuffs (or lack thereof).

What does this answer in relation to qualia?
It tells us that moments are qualitatively conditioned by the given physical constraints.
What power mind and/or brain have over each other remains to be seen, as does the will's constituents and how it comes into being. Does it boil down to binary, exponential subject-object distinctions giving rise to abstract properties? Answers to the question of meta-consciousness continue to elude us.

We hypothesize that the given conditioning can evoke
a certain magnitude of qualia. We assert that qualia exist
to the extent that belief does (and is) but that they are ascribed
to experience by presentation rather than representation.
Belief and desire are propositional whereas qualia are proponents thereof which feedback into behavior, belief and desire.

Tentatively, we suggest that qualia might be measured in term analogous to wave patterns and spectral density while individual quale might be respective to individual neuronal constructs within the neuroplastic structure of the brain.

In this way a given pathway corresponds to a certain experience/memory.

a balloon floats over a child’s birthday party that the fat girl wasn’t invited to.
the balloon is the art of maintenance.
let some air out, blow some in, until it’s just right, and then tie it off.

when i was born, i weighed ever so slightly more than six pounds.
that was the last time i’d be slight.
i grew big and grew bigger
years of eating, years of blowing hot air into a balloon hard and fast
with thick, humid inside filling and filling
no longer clear but cloudy and clotted and sick and bigger, and bigger, skin ripping, breaths uncaring, breaths unwavering—

my mother was terrified i’d pop.

i came close in high school, weighing in at two hundred and eight pounds
at the doctor, when i accidentally saw the chart that i was so afraid to see
that i hadn’t seen it in years
and now, here, i saw the weight that i was so afraid, all of this time, to know that i carried.

but i felt it qualitatively
not in the knees, where they tell you you’ll feel it
not in the tightening and narrowing of my overstuffed clothes and arteries
plaque lining them, hardening into tunnels that the blood
can’t find a way through in more than needle thin streams
little brooks in a body born with rivers

not in the heart pumping hard to keep up
not in the swollen, alien stomach that i am sure does not belong to Kate Moss
but i am unsure truly belongs to me.
it looks nothing like the plus size model’s tanned, toned, macro version of a micro Moss
flawless and shiny and glazed with the flecks of photoshopped light
i am a photographer myself, i know the tricks
i felt it in the way the world treated me.

and i know that woman, my designated sister in size who couldn’t fit in my pants and whose shirt I’d drown in, the predetermined champion of my cause,
my implied, targeted marketing role model gimmick and plea to the outraged girls with thick thighs to settle
for someone shopped, just like everyone else.
edited, audited for body parts like stretch marks and pale skin and lines of hair
called happy trails but are sad
that scream desperately for air and an ending when someone,
someone they call brave, runs his tongue along the clearing where they ripped out our flowers and called them weeds, a sad reminder
that i call him brave, too, because they told me he was.

they told me he was brave for adventuring my hills and valleys.
he is no explorer, most of the time.
he is simply a tourist.

they tell me to settle for a woman who still doesn’t look like me.
and they set me a new standard to aspire to—
“FINE, BE BIG, BE PLUS, BE CURVY! YOU CAN BE THEM, BUT YOU CANNOT BE FAT. YOU CANNOT BE FAT. HER FAT IS IN HER *******, IN HER HIPS, IN HER THIGHS… BUT YOUR FAT? YOUR FAT? YOU’RE JUST FAT!”

so i looked in the mirror, ****** it in, twisted, manipulated, tried on this bra and these underwear
and yes, my waist looked slim and yes, my hips had breadth and yes, my ******* were massive and yes, I looked like her.

but then, my mother screamed.

“you are going to die! this is so unhealthy! we have to do something!”
because my high school sent a letter home telling my mother that i was abominable based on three letters and three digits:
BMI- 37.1
WEI
GHT
203
i took off my control top *******.
i undid the latch on my push up, padded bra.
i deflated my stomach.
i deflated my pride.
i looked in the mirror in shock and horror like viewing an old time slasher flick in the back of a drive in in the middle of the night in the days where maybe there’d be a hook on the handle when he came to open my door.
i did not look like her.

i let out the air in slow and painful pinches.
and sometimes it swam, doing pirouettes in the bowl like a little dancer
a teaser of the kind of thin lean woman i am not unless these dinners keep spinning
clockwise down the toilet before i feel them weigh in my stomach
and i am wise to the clock – wait just 30 minutes and you take up half the calories.
do it now, now, now, you have to, you have to – and you’ll take up half the space.
Ana told me to and she is only looking out for me.
the numbers decline to 199 and i think 189 could be mine if i put in the time
and i’m wise to the clock so i start the countdown from 199 to 189 to 177 and i quit

because i let the air out, and for once in my life, when i left my house in two months’ time for the first time,
for once in my life, i wanted to let it in.

some days it leaks out of me.
one more laxative won’t hurt and i don’t care if the weight is fat, water, or ****, it still counts
155, 159, 163…161, 159, 155
and sometimes i still think
Ana is my friend.

but when i’m weak and jealous and out of my head
and angry at the explorer i’ve met who tells me he has so enjoyed his visit
that he’s decided to move in forever, enchanted with the landscape and the history and culture in the area, in the country i’ve built through disorder and plants and bread and loss and skin bunching and ribs you can feel and an *** you can grab so hard sometimes it hurts
sometimes i still think Ana is my friend.

but when i am deflated and counting and wearing out my plastic, and I think one way or another, I’m going to die
I’ll **** myself, with razor blades or Ativan or cancer from these ******* laxatives or these appetite suppressant menthol 100 cigarettes or maybe I’ll just jump like I wanted to
But any day, if I keep going, I’m going to pop—
I realize something about my friend Ana.
when i’m sickly and tired and ******* my brains out
and wishing i hadn’t hurt and built walls to keep out the man that filled the vacancy in my hotel heart who i promised to marry to keep in my country, the one built from feminist strength, brick and bone and stars and skin and roses and muscle and fat and beauty,

baby, take your visa back and let’s knock down these walls and we can tie me off.
Ana is not my friend.
She’s holding the pin.

If you ask me how deep a love should be
Don’t seek an answer quantitatively.
Love’s to be measured qualitatively,
Except that I love you infinitely.

If each love is its own variety,
Which one is the one between you and me?
Is it type one or type one hundred three?
My love for you is love infinity.

If you ask how much love I give to thee
For fear love might exceed capacity,
Man never loves to his ability.
Except me—I love you infinitely.

If you need me to love descriptively,
Each day I love you more infinitely,
I need new numbers mathematically,
For I love you more than infinity.

We say we belong to each other
Wow, it's nice to hear
We see each other as a mate
Well, I think it's great

But do we really treat each other as a buddy
Do we spend our time together qualitatively
For if not something must be wrong
And the truth will slap that we don't really belong

So let's evaluate together
Do we really care for each other
Do we celebrate each other's victories
Do we support each other's weaknesses

If it's a NO let's think again
Let's ask each other where have we fallen
For it's never too late
To change the conclusion of our fate

Tell me that I matter to you
And I will tell you that I love you so
Tell me that you want me
And to you I will stay

You cannot imagine I
Speaking from another person's
Point of view.
Though you recognize the importance,
The intrinsic value of it qualitatively,
You're not able to
But the issue is deeper, broader
Because you cannot put yourself
In another's shoe