Chapter I

THE RESEARCH PROBLEM

Background of the Study

Education comes with discipline. Developing the discipline of students is both a

responsibility of the parents and the school. The Department of Education (DepEd) which is

responsible for ensuring and promoting access and equity in, and refining the Philippines’ quality

of basic education, have always seen the importance of school discipline among learners. In fact,

as stated in DepEd Order No. 92, series of 1992, discipline inside the school premises and

outside the school campus where students participate in authorized activities shall be maintained

by every school. Section 6.2 of RA 9155 as mentioned in DepEd Order No.1, series of 2003

specifies that the school head shall have the responsibility, authority and accountability for

building a conducive to teaching and learning an school environment. Thus, the right to enforce

reasonable and appropriate disciplinary measures in case of violations of good discipline shall be

given to teachers and school officials. However, imposing punishments that physically and

emotionally harmful to student are highly discouraged. Without discipline, it would be difficult

to achieve the learning goals set by the school thus, the need to set policies (Kumar, Importance

of discipline in school life, 2016).

School policies are guidelines and rules laid by the school administrators for the students

which serve as a center of their course of action and which helps the school to maintain its

orderliness and proper discipline. With these policies, schools are able to run safely and

smoothly and see to it that a quality education is what students receive (Granite School District-

Plymouth Elementary, Home of the Patriots, 2019). Since every policy of the school affects the

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education of a child, therefore, the school boards’ decision should be carefully made regarding

this matter (Shiota, 2019).

Realizing the importance of school policies, DepEd schools in consultation with the various

school and community stakeholders have constructed and implemented set of school policies. In

DepEd Order 47 s. 2014, the Supreme Student Government of the school were given the chance

participate in the planning, implementation, and to enforcement of these policies that are

designed to protect and promote the student’s rights and welfare.

Implementation of the school policies is not an easy task to do and every school experiences

cases involving school policy violations. In Malaysia, study of Saowanee, Wallapha, and Ngang

(2013) which involved school administrators, teachers, parents, and student-respondents have

revealed that physical violence was most common in Nongkungsriwittayakarn School due to the

fact that students find it difficult to control their emotions.

Meanwhile, the study of Sun and Shek (2012) in Hongkong showed that the usual and disruptive

problem among junior secondary school student in classroom was non-attentiveness, talking out

of turn, daydreaming, and idleness. Furthermore, verbal aggression, disrespecting teachers in

terms of disobedience and rudeness, and talking out of turn are the most unacceptable behavior

problems. Also, from this study, behavior problems such as violating the implicit norms or

expectations, rule-breaking, upsetting teaching and learning, and being inappropriate in the

classroom settings are perceived by the teachers the need to have interventions.

In the United States of America, secondary schools have reported two (2) million cases of

students’ suspension and expulsion each year. Minor offenses such as disrespecting, disruption,

dress code violations and tardiness was found to be the common cause. Research shows that

punishment such as suspension or expulsion lead to unproductive students, higher percent of risk

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or negative impacts to the development of their socio-emotional, low academic performance and

affect their life trajectories. On the other hand, findings of some studies revealed that employing

positive approaches to school discipline can actually improve behavior of students towards

school policy and learning environment and thus students have less likely be involved in juvenile

justice system. Recently, guidelines issued by the United States Department of Education

recommend public schools to have new discipline strategies in order to minimize the growing

number of school punishment. Educators double their effort to transform disciplinary practices to

productive and conducive school to students (Jefferson, 2007).

Ndeto (2013) conducted a study in Kenya specifically in the Kangundo Division, Machakos

County and found out that in the public secondary schools of the division, though there is a high

participation of students in the school policies implementation but during its formulation,

students were inadequately involved. But because students seemed to acknowledge the intrinsic

value of school policies and its role to discipline enhancement, they manifested willingness to

embrace such rules.

School policy violations are also apparent in the Philippines. Nowadays, Filipino students

seemed to have developed new ways of behaving that includes acted-outrange, lack of respect

and blame. More seriously ill-behaved students would threaten, blast their teachers, hit or punch

the walls, break things in class, bully others, vandalize or call names (Sun Star Baguio, 2018). In

a study conducted by Cabahug, Cabalde, Corpuz, & Mangawang (2015) focusing on the factors

that contribute to school rule violations as perceived by the Grade 7 and 8 students, school year

2015-2016 at a private school in Quezon City, Philippines revealed that most respondents violate

school rules because they are bored. Eating in the classroom and no bringing of gadgets are the

most commonly violated. Meanwhile, the case study done by Machica, Abud, Machica, &

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Cabugawan (2018) have revealed that cheating among students was due to the students’ desire to

go away with failing grades yet lazy to study. Involved in the study were purposively chosen

college sophomore, junior, and senior student-participants of a government school in Eastern

Samar, Philippines.

At a local level, there were also reported cases of school policy violations. According to the

guidance counselor of Dulag National High School, a mega-school one of the public secondary

schools in Dulag, Leyte, Philippines, commonly reported cases involved student’s bullying,

truancy, gambling, stealing, and playing online games during classes.

Undeniably, any school experiences violations with the policies that they have set and

this results to lowering the school discipline of the students. Though efforts have been made to

raise awareness on these policies among students, but still violations occur. However, literature

has still to prove how awareness on school policies relates to students’ school discipline, thus,

the general aim of this study. Through this research, inputs on some ways on how school

discipline could be advocated to students can be provided.

Statement of the Problem

This study generally aims to determine the relationship between the level of awareness on

school policies and level of school discipline among students of Dulag National High School,

school year 2018-2019.

Specifically, this study seeks to answer the following questions.

1. What is the respondents’ level of awareness on school policies?

2. What is the respondents’ level of school discipline?

3. Is there a significant relationship between the level of awareness on school policies and

level of school discipline?

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4. To what extent are the school policies being violated by the students?

5. What are the reasons of the respondents for violating the school policies?

6. Based on the findings of this study, what activities can be done to promote school discipline?

Scope and Delimitations

This study only focused at determining the relationship between students’ level of

awareness on school policies and level of school discipline. Also, the extent of violation to

school policies and their corresponding reasons was considered in this research. The study is

delimited to the school policies of Dulag National High School (DNHS) and only the junior and

senior high school students of DNHS enrolled for the school year 2018-2019 took part in this

study. Data were only gathered from December 3 – 7, 2018 using a structured questionnaire.

Significance of the Study

This study will prove beneficial to the following stakeholders of DNHS.

School Administrators

This study hopes to provide school administrators the information about students’ level

of awareness on school policies, their level of school discipline and how these two variables

were related. This information serves as inputs on ways that can help the school administration

promote school discipline to its students and follow the policies set by the school in the aim to

facilitate better learning among students. Also, this study aims to provide school administrators

valuable data on what school policies are mostly being violated and the reasons behind these

violations. Such data is helpful in coming up with the appropriate action as to what policy needs

more focused implementation.

Teachers

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DepEd teachers, the one who has the first hand contact to the students are very helpful in the

successful dissemination, implementation and monitoring of the different school policies. Thus,

this study hopes to provide teachers the idea as to what possible redirections or improvements

could they do in terms of the need for information dissemination and implementation of the

school policies.

Supreme Student Government (SSG)

As the lead student organization that serves as the voice of the students in the school, the

SSG also aims to support and promote in the implementation of the policies of the school. Thus,

this study hopes to provide additional inputs to SSG on what and how can a lead student

organization contribute to the promotion of school discipline among their student constituents.

Students

Assessing the level of awareness on school policies, level of school discipline, extent of

school policies violation and their corresponding reasons serves as inputs for improvement on

the dissemination, implementation and monitoring of school policies. In the end, these

improvements will be beneficial to the students in the sense that a better quality of learning could

be achieved.

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