| dc.description.abstract | Students’admission into different public secondary school types is based on the criteria of their KCPE(Kenya Certificate of Primary Education)marks. There is a lot of stereotyping on “school labels”.National schools post best KCSE (Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education) grades, making them institutions of fame and prestige. Extra-county and County schools follow Nationalschools and at the bottom are Sub-county schools, producing the bulk of the poor grades (D’s). The implication is that most students in the last category miss qualification to professional careers. The trend is worrying and parents are concerned about the school type their children attend. Therefore, students over time have known differences between secondary school categories. Such categorizationcould affect one’s self-realization, influencing self-esteem. The aim of this study was to find out if there are differences in students’ self-esteem amongschool-types. The study employed correlational research design. Quantitative data was collected by use of questionnaires. The questionnaires were administered to a sample of 480 students in form 4classfrom 12 public secondary schools in Nairobi County. Cluster and purposive sampling was used to get the 12 schools. One form 4 class stream of40 students(in each sampled school)was selected through simple random sampling. Chi-square (x2) statisticstested the differences in students’self-esteembetween school types. An analysis of gender differences and students’ self-esteem used t-test and x2. The level of significance in rejecting the null hypothesis was at P≤0.05. The study found a significant relationship between school type and students’self-esteem, x2(6)= 456.56, p= .00. The study also foundsignificant gender differences and students’self-esteem, t(443)= -4.96, p˂ .05, and x2(2)= 42.61, P= .001. The findings showed that most students from national and extra-county schools have high self-esteem whereas majority of sub-county students exhibit low self-esteem. It was recommended the need to develop self-esteem enhancement programmes in secondary schools, more so in the sub-countyschools. There was also need to enhance the image of sub-county schools by heavily investing on learninginfrastructures and resources. | en_US |
