Influence of Excess Pocket Money on Drug Abuse among Secondary Schools in Laikipia, Nakuru and Kericho Counties, Kenya

Drug abuse in Kenya is a serious problem facing secondary school going students. Excess pocket money given to students has been cited as a common factor leading to drug abuse. The objective of this study was to determine the relationship between amount of pocket money given to students and drug abuse among students in urban and rural secondary schools in Laikipia, Nakuru and Kericho Counties. The study used descriptive survey and ex- post facto research design. The target population was all the secondary school students in the region. Purposive sampling was used to select the 66 administrators and school counsellors. Simple random sampling was used to select the 320 students within Form II and III classes. Stratified random sampling was used to select the schools. Pretesting of the instruments was done in the Kiambu County in three schools where the Cronbach correlation coefficient was 0.72, which was higher than the minimum, required in social science research. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 17 was used in the data analysis. Descriptive analysis (percentages) and Chi-square was used to test the relationship between pocket money and drug abuse. An alpha level of .05 was used for the statistical test. The study indicated that the drug problem was higher in rural schools than in urban schools and that the amount of pocket money given to students has a statistically significant relationship with drug abuse. This study thus recommends that the amount of pocket money given to students should not be excessive and that there should be a heightened focus on educating and enlightening students on proper use of pocket money.