Abstract:
School management is the exercise of power and authority to achieve set educational goals. In secondary
schools, the students play a crucial role through the student leaders in complementing the school administration to
enhance effective management. However following persistent student unrest in secondary schools in Kenya the Ministry
of Education (MOE) reformed the student leadership from prefects who are appointed by teachers to student councils that
are democratically elected by students. The study was conducted in Nyeri County of Kenya. It adopted a casualcomparative research design. The study was conducted in 24 boys and girls public boarding secondary schools that were
identified using purposive sampling. The target population was 10,387 subjects that comprised of members of the student
council, teachers, students and deputy principals. Using a purposive sampling technique 192 members of the student
council was sampled to participate in the study. A simple random sampling technique was used to select 144 Form Three
students in public boarding secondary schools to participate in the study. Using a purposive sampling technique 24 Form
Three class teacher and 24 deputy principals were sampled to participate in the study. To ascertain reliability the
instruments were pilot tested in two non co-educational public boarding secondary schools in Kirinyaga County. The
reliability coefficient was estimated using Cronbach coefficient alpha. A coefficient value of 0.865 and was obtained from
all research instruments. Data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 21 for Windows.
Hypotheses were tested using t-test and multiple regression (r
2
) statistics at α = 0.05significance level. The study
established that the student councils do not enhance effective communication in management of non co-educational
secondary schools.
