Assessing Moral Education in Kenyan Secondary Schools

Abstract

Previous research has consistently reported that Kenyan students’ moral standing and general conduct in the wider society reflects incompetence in moral insights. The scenario in which immoral behavior has dominated the character of the Kenyan youth has brought to contention whether the moral well being of the youth is on a downward trend suggesting that either the assessment of moral insights through C.R.E is defective or the Kenyan education system as a whole is defective. Another possibility is that the syllabus does not contain relevant elements that could enable students acquire and develop the needed moral insights. One other likelihood could be the existence of a discrepancy between the C.R.E assessment strategies and the instructional practices meant to achieve them. From the forgoing, it was evident that the nature of this discrepancy is yet to be established for effective intervention strategies to be put in place to arrest the apparent downward trend in the acquisition of moral insights. Specifically the study determined whether or not the modes of moral assessment are employed by teachers in their (teachers) instructional assessments in Kisumu East district secondary schools. Two instruments used in collecting data included, an indepth interview schedule and documents analysis guide. The study population comprised 48 teachers. Out of this population, 16 which constituted 30% of the teachers’ population were selected using simple random sampling technique. The obtained results suggested that teachers rarely used the moral judgment modes or indices that could gauge the learner acquisition of moral competence. Another notable finding was that the curriculum and the syllabus guides did not elaborate on the moral judgment modes or indices that teachers ought to use during C.RE assessment.