Classroom Management Strategies and Students’ Drop out in Public Secondary Schools in Rwanda, a Case of Musanze District

Abstract

The main aim of the study was to examine the influence of classroom management strategies on student dropouts in public secondary schools in Rwanda. The study’s specific objectives included; to evaluate the influence of disciplinary intervention strategies on student dropouts in public secondary schools in Musanze District, to examine the influence of teacher-student interaction strategies on student dropouts in public secondary schools in Musanze District, and to evaluate the influence of classroom arrangement strategies and student dropouts in public secondary schools in Musanze District. The target population of the study comprised of 135 participants sourced from head teachers, discipline masters, and teacher representatives from 45 schools.  Yamane formula was utilized to determine sample size of 101. The research used purposive and simple random sampling techniques. The findings indicated that the discipline interventions strategies and students drop out were correlative significantly with regression analysis of R² of 0.834 this means that the findings show strong linear, positive, statistically significant and good fit. The regression analysis (R²) of teacher-student Interaction and Student Dropout in public secondary schools in Rwanda was 0.811 and it shown that teacher-students interaction influence student drop out means a good mutuality of teachers and students motivate the students to attend class actively. The findings also  focus on  how  classroom arrangement  influence students drop out in  public secondary school and the results  were justified by the regression analysis of R²  of 0.924 means that the classroom arrangement  can act as catalyst to reduce the student drop out in  public secondary schools in Rwanda. Generally the regression analysis R square of 0.912 from all variables indicated that classroom management’s strategies are needed to reduce the student dropout rate in public secondary schools. All education partners should have periodical training sessions to encourage effective classroom management strategies, to encourage students to remain in class during teaching and learning process   and to enhance teachers’ professional practice, knowledge, ethics, values and behaviors towards the students.

Keywords: classroom management’s strategies, Students’ drop out, schools, teacher-student interaction, disciplinary intervention, classroom arrangement