Students’ Perception of School Rules and Regulations as a Quest for Good Governance. A Case Study of a Peri-Urban Mixed Secondary School in North-Rift Kenya

The purpose of this study was to investigate students’ perception of school rules and regulations with regard to teacher-student relationship. The theoretical framework adopted was informed by Etzioni’s (1961) Compliance Theory. The philosophical orientation was relativist ontology and constructivist episte-mology. While methodology was case study. Unstructured inter-views were used in data collection followed by data transcrip-tions. To uphold trustworthiness of the study, “the member check†was used to check validity while reliability was enhanced through cross checking the transcripts for obvious mistakes. Piloting was carried out with form 4 students; 3 male and 3 fe-males at a peri-urban mixed secondary school in South Rift-Kenya and ethical considerations were observed throughout the study. Data were analyzed thematically and the results were presented as reported by the participants with the aid of thematic networks. The study found out that the students’ perception of school rules and regulations with regard to teacher-student rela-tionship was generally negative. Teacher-student conflicts were as a result of excessive force that teachers used on the students. Their inhuman, discriminative and impolite nature made stu-dents to oppose them. On the basis of the findings, the researcher recommended that teachers ought to take their time in explaining school rules and regulations to their students and avoid casting them in steel. Besides teachers ought to shun discrimination and harshness in enforcing of school rules and regulations and uphold dialogue.