INFLUENCE OF AUTOCRATIC LEADERSHIP ON STUDENT UNREST IN PUBLIC BOARDING SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN BUNGOMA COUNTY IN KENYA

The purpose of this study was to assess the influence of autocratic leadership on student unrest in public boarding secondary schools in Bungoma County. Expost facto research design was adopted. The target population was 76 deputy principals, 152 teachers and 3,040 form four students in public boarding secondary schools. Multistage sampling was used in this study where schools were clustered into two categories. A simple random sampling technique was used to select 12 schools and 480 form four students from the categories. Purposive sampling was then used to select 12 deputy principals in charge of administration, 24 heads of boarding sections and teachers in charge of guidance and counselling departments in the schools. Descriptive statistical techniques such as frequencies and means and inferential techniques of one way ANOVA and the independent samples t-test statistics were conducted to compare differences between the two independent groups of schools. The study established that schools in which the principals’ used autocratic leadership style were found to have more cases of student unrests.