This study investigated the role of parents in enhancing discipline among students in public day secondary schools. Stakeholders’ must play their roles especially in day secondary school along with the teachers to enhance discipline among students. This paper guided by five research questions on the following issues; roles of parents in enhancing discipline among students in day secondary schools and parental factors that affect parents as they try to play their roles. The Balance theory of Litwak and Meyers (1974) was used as the theoretical framework to guide the study. According to the theory as applied in this study parents play a crucial role in the students discipline from home to school. Their collaborative efforts with the teachers would enhance discipline among students especially in day secondary schools. The researcher used descriptive survey and naturalistic designs. The study used a sample of 206 respondents who comprised of 5 head teachers, 10 class teachers, 20 parents and 171 students from five selected day secondary schools. The study used questionnaires and interview as instruments for data collection. The instruments for this study were validated through application of content validity determined by experts’ judgement inclusive of scholars. On the other hand, reliability of the questionnaires was determined by split half co-efficient of internal consistency after pre-testing of the instruments in four purposively selected pilot schools. Results for the correlation co- efficient of the instruments were 0.68 for student’s questionnaire, 0.70 for parent’s questionnaire. The data collected was analyzed using both• quantitative and qualitative approaches. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze quantitative data to derive frequencies, percentages and graphs using the SPSS computer software version 11.5. Analysis of qualitative data was an on-going process whereby narratives and interpretive reports were written down to depict the situation as it was on the ground. The study found out that parents in the area of study played some few roles like guiding and counselling students and reporting cases of student misconduct while out of school. However other equally crucial roles were not adequately played like supervising remedial work at home, reprimanding students over discipline cases and monitoring their movements while out of school. This failure of parents to play these roles contributed to the discipline problems experienced in the schools on the area of study. The study concluded that parents needed to play their roles actively in collaboration with the school administrators so as to enhance discipline among students. The study recommended that the Ministry of Education should legalize the PTAs so that parents can be sensitized and effectively play their roles. The parents also need to be sensitized through seminars, meetings and workshops on the roles. The school administrators too need to encourage the open perspective of the balance theory by actively involving parents in student discipline issues in schools.

Keywords : Discipline – It deals with teaching the child what is right or wrong. Day school – Refers to type of school where students go to in the morning and leaving by five in the evening. Student – Refers to a person studying in a school especially secondary for this study.