This article examines the quality of primary school inputs in urban settlements with a view to un... more This article examines the quality of primary school inputs in urban settlements with a view to understand how it sheds light on benchmarks of education quality indicators in Kenya. Data from a school survey that involved 83 primary schools collected in 2005 were used. The data set contains information on school quality characteristics of various types of schools in Nairobi. On the basis of the national benchmarks, the quality of education provided in government schools was shown to be “better” with regard to infrastructure, teacher qualifications, and textbook provision than that provided in all the nongovernment-owned schools. However, nongovernment schools have smaller class sizes and lower pupil—teacher ratio (PTR). The bad news is that government schools have large class sizes and higher PTR and hence low levels of teacher—pupil interaction. Nongovernment schools had poor classroom structures and a higher pupil—textbook ratio, particulary private individually owned schools and community-owned schools. It also emerges that although in the government schools, student learning space is constrained by the class size, the student learning space in nongovernment schools is constrained by the classroom size. Meeting quality benchmarks in primary schooling, therefore, remains a challenge among urban populations.
The onset of COVID-19 made governments and other education actors prioritize distance learning, p... more The onset of COVID-19 made governments and other education actors prioritize distance learning, particularly through education technologies (EdTechs). Most sub-Saharan African countries adopted and adapted this approach. This paper examines the extent of EdTechs’ deployment in Kenya during the COVID-19 pandemic among marginalized and vulnerable populations. A cross-sectional study design was adopted for the study from which this paper drew its data, with both secondary and primary data utilized. The findings show that marginalized/vulnerable learner populations are still left out on EdTech supported learning. This article proposes salient recommendations that could help advance inclusive education discussion and related EdTechs’ discourse.
This article contributes new evidence on factors associated with low achievement among pupils in ... more This article contributes new evidence on factors associated with low achievement among pupils in urban informal neighborhoods in Nairobi, Kenya. The authors use three different data sets to examine the effect of residence in particular neighborhoods, pupil gender, primary school type, and household socioeconomic status on pupil achievement in the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination results for 2005 and 2006. Results suggest that residence in Nairobi’s informal neighborhoods of Korogocho and Viwandani, enrollment in a public school, and one’s gender, if female, are the strongest explanatory variables for low achievement. Policy implications from the study results are discussed.
We analyze the cost and cost-effectiveness of an early childhood development and education (ECDE)... more We analyze the cost and cost-effectiveness of an early childhood development and education (ECDE) program in Kenya which aimed at preparing pre-primary children for primary school. A cluster randomized controlled trial design was used. Enrolled schools were provided with three different treatment packages that aimed at improving the instructional quality of ECDE centres complemented with a health component. We find that for every additional US$ 1 spent on the second treatment package, the intervention yields 0.16 extra percentage points in public ECDE centres over two years of participation. This translates to a cost of US$ 14.83 per child. Similarly, in private ECDE centres, results suggest that the yield of extra learning score per US$ 1 spent on the second treatment package is 0.36 percentage points, which translates to a cost of US$ 17.01 per child. Our findings indicate that combining the training of teachers, supervision staff, teacher support, books and teachers’ guides may b...
The present context signals a pressing need for concerted efforts to galvanize the SSA CYR agenda... more The present context signals a pressing need for concerted efforts to galvanize the SSA CYR agenda to ensure that the enjoyment of key rights becomes a reality for all of the region’s young people. Such an undertaking is particularly timely at this juncture as the AU marks the 25- and 10-year anniversaries of the adoption of the ACRWC and AYC respectively. Further the new global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework affirms a focus not only on children and youth but on the pursuit of human rights principles and commitments (UN 2015). This paper seeks to offer conceptual and empirical perspectives to contribute to an advancement of the CYR agenda in SSA. The conceptual framing draws on relevant scientific perspectives on the international human rights regime as well as on a scrutiny of salient population and development discourses and agendas for the Africa region. Building on these the framework: 1) Illuminates the extent to and ways in which the CYR agenda in fact concurs a...
This article examines why poor urban households utilize low-fee private schools despite the gover... more This article examines why poor urban households utilize low-fee private schools despite the government’s pro-poor free primary education program in Kenya. Cross-sectional data collected in 2010 through a demographic surveillance survey is analyzed. Students’ parents responded to questions concerning their perceptions of the quality of schooling after the introduction of free primary education. In total, 6,660 students living in 4,220 households are included in the analysis. A structural equation model was estimated to investigate how perceived quality of schooling, direct schooling costs, and distance to school affected the household’s choice of school. Results show that poor households utilize low-fee private schools because of physical convenience, rather than quality of education and/or low-fees charged. We conclude that enhanced accessibility to government schools among poor urban households and provision of capitation grants targeting children from these households rather than the schools are urgently needed.
Investment in sub-Sahara Africa's (SSA’s) youth through effective capacity development, invol... more Investment in sub-Sahara Africa's (SSA’s) youth through effective capacity development, involving adoption of contemporary skills development approaches, is integral in alleviating the region’s high youth unemployment rates as it will equip the youth with skills needed for employment. Skills that are needed are those that holistically develop the youth skills-set, including technical/hard and soft-skills, dubbed whole youth development (WYD) skills. This paper thus explores Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) students’ understanding of soft-skills and its development. The paper utilizes data collected from a TVET study in Kenya that was carried in 9 of the 47 counties, targeting learners aged 15–24 years. The selected counties were those that had national polytechnics for national representation, except one (Turkana county), which was selected to represent youth from marginalized counties. A descriptive cross-sectional study design was adopted for this study. ...
The free primary education policy has led to a significant increase in primary school enrollment ... more The free primary education policy has led to a significant increase in primary school enrollment in the country, from 8.6 million children in 2008 to 9.9 million in 2012. Increased enrollment complicated the work of teachers in the classrooms in the wake of FPE. This article seeks to document the challenges that teachers face in Kenyan classrooms across six urban sites in Kenya. Data come from the Education Research Program at the African Population and Health Research Center, collected in the months of January to March 2012. This article presents data from Focus Group Discussions, which were analyzed using thematic qualitative analysis. Results show that teachers across the six urban sites faced numerous challenges, with the most striking one being the process of evaluation by district quality assurance officers, who need to take into consideration the circumstances in which teachers teach in the schools across the country. Overall, the study called for the need to take the context...
Africa could benefit from the demographic dividend by identifying strategies for investing in the... more Africa could benefit from the demographic dividend by identifying strategies for investing in the massive youthful workforce. The current study employs the social cognitive career theory perspective to assess Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions’ curriculum coverage of various skills in Kenya. We further examine the relevance of the curricula to the labour market and barriers affecting institutions' capacity to implement practical-oriented and demand-driven curricula. A cross-sectional research design was adopted using a mixed-method approach to gather and analyse data. Findings revealed different levels of coverage of soft and technical skills in the curriculum. Inadequate resources, lack of modern equipment and technology, and minimal adoption of practical components in the curriculum were identified as barriers to acquiring skills, consequently affecting TVET students' capacity to secure employment. To promote requisite skills acquisition and ac...
<p>Introduction: The integration of an informative and inclusive monitoring, evaluation and... more <p>Introduction: The integration of an informative and inclusive monitoring, evaluation and learning process which requires appropriate tools and methods is crucial to the effective implementation of early childhood interventions. Most of the child development assessment tools that have been constructed for use in sub-Saharan Africa consider the need to be affordable and feasibly administered by those with limited previous experience. These tools include the Kilifi Developmental Inventory (KDI), the A-not-B task, the Developmental Milestones Checklist, and the Profile for Socio-Emotional Development (PSED) which each use different approaches such as direct child assessment, observation, and parental reports. Whereas these tools have demonstrated good psychometric properties, each of them focusses either on only one or two child developmental domains, does not adequately measure all aspects of the different domains that are theoretically affected by a risk factor or intervention, or is not in sufficient depth. We therefore constructed a tool that combined these separate measures into one assessment schedule – the Protocol for Child Monitoring – Infant/Toddler version (PCM-IT). We subjected the combined tool to a process of pilot testing and validation to establish its psychometric properties, the feasibility of administration and acceptability.Method: The framework of five aspirations (inclusive, informative, people-centered, dynamic and interactive) that guide effective intervention delivery mechanisms was used to structure the evaluation of the PCM-IT. The piloting of the administration of the PCM-IT was based on a proof-of-concept study with a multi-arm pre-post design in Kibera and Kangemi, while the validation study was carried out in Mathare. The three areas are informal settlements in Nairobi. The results of the pilot study informed the selection of items that were included in the validation study.Results: The timed items were too difficult for the children included in the study and were therefore excluded. Overall, the PCM-IT had excellent reliability levels. Children's raw sub-scale and overall developmental scores were normally distributed. There were weak to moderate correlations across the different domains. Speed and fluency of administration of items among the assessment team improved with practice and familiarity. The tool was perceived as providing holistic information about a child's performance. Conclusion: The aspirations of Measurement for Change including the need for a tool development and administration process to be inclusive, informative, people-centered, and dynamic were met to a large extent. The aspiration of being interactive would be better met through an exploration of the use of the tool to engage with families to strengthen the quality of their nurturing care practices.</p>
How to cite Complete issue More information about this article Journal's homepage in redalyc... more How to cite Complete issue More information about this article Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Scientific Information System
Indulgence in risky behavior is a reason for low academic performance. We hypothesized that four ... more Indulgence in risky behavior is a reason for low academic performance. We hypothesized that four constructs including academic aspiration, self-confidence, interest in schooling, and peer influence mediate the relationship between risky behavior and academic performance. Data are from 1256 school-going girls in urban slums who came from the lowest 40% of poor households. Results show that indulgence in risky behavior leads to low aspiration, low self-confidence, and low interest in schooling. The constructs mediate between risky behavior and academic performance even after accounting for covariates. The results imply that education practitioners can focus on soft-skills to enhance academic achievement.
This article examines the quality of primary school inputs in urban settlements with a view to un... more This article examines the quality of primary school inputs in urban settlements with a view to understand how it sheds light on benchmarks of education quality indicators in Kenya. Data from a school survey that involved 83 primary schools collected in 2005 were used. The data set contains information on school quality characteristics of various types of schools in Nairobi. On the basis of the national benchmarks, the quality of education provided in government schools was shown to be “better” with regard to infrastructure, teacher qualifications, and textbook provision than that provided in all the nongovernment-owned schools. However, nongovernment schools have smaller class sizes and lower pupil—teacher ratio (PTR). The bad news is that government schools have large class sizes and higher PTR and hence low levels of teacher—pupil interaction. Nongovernment schools had poor classroom structures and a higher pupil—textbook ratio, particulary private individually owned schools and community-owned schools. It also emerges that although in the government schools, student learning space is constrained by the class size, the student learning space in nongovernment schools is constrained by the classroom size. Meeting quality benchmarks in primary schooling, therefore, remains a challenge among urban populations.
The onset of COVID-19 made governments and other education actors prioritize distance learning, p... more The onset of COVID-19 made governments and other education actors prioritize distance learning, particularly through education technologies (EdTechs). Most sub-Saharan African countries adopted and adapted this approach. This paper examines the extent of EdTechs’ deployment in Kenya during the COVID-19 pandemic among marginalized and vulnerable populations. A cross-sectional study design was adopted for the study from which this paper drew its data, with both secondary and primary data utilized. The findings show that marginalized/vulnerable learner populations are still left out on EdTech supported learning. This article proposes salient recommendations that could help advance inclusive education discussion and related EdTechs’ discourse.
This article contributes new evidence on factors associated with low achievement among pupils in ... more This article contributes new evidence on factors associated with low achievement among pupils in urban informal neighborhoods in Nairobi, Kenya. The authors use three different data sets to examine the effect of residence in particular neighborhoods, pupil gender, primary school type, and household socioeconomic status on pupil achievement in the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination results for 2005 and 2006. Results suggest that residence in Nairobi’s informal neighborhoods of Korogocho and Viwandani, enrollment in a public school, and one’s gender, if female, are the strongest explanatory variables for low achievement. Policy implications from the study results are discussed.
We analyze the cost and cost-effectiveness of an early childhood development and education (ECDE)... more We analyze the cost and cost-effectiveness of an early childhood development and education (ECDE) program in Kenya which aimed at preparing pre-primary children for primary school. A cluster randomized controlled trial design was used. Enrolled schools were provided with three different treatment packages that aimed at improving the instructional quality of ECDE centres complemented with a health component. We find that for every additional US$ 1 spent on the second treatment package, the intervention yields 0.16 extra percentage points in public ECDE centres over two years of participation. This translates to a cost of US$ 14.83 per child. Similarly, in private ECDE centres, results suggest that the yield of extra learning score per US$ 1 spent on the second treatment package is 0.36 percentage points, which translates to a cost of US$ 17.01 per child. Our findings indicate that combining the training of teachers, supervision staff, teacher support, books and teachers’ guides may b...
The present context signals a pressing need for concerted efforts to galvanize the SSA CYR agenda... more The present context signals a pressing need for concerted efforts to galvanize the SSA CYR agenda to ensure that the enjoyment of key rights becomes a reality for all of the region’s young people. Such an undertaking is particularly timely at this juncture as the AU marks the 25- and 10-year anniversaries of the adoption of the ACRWC and AYC respectively. Further the new global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework affirms a focus not only on children and youth but on the pursuit of human rights principles and commitments (UN 2015). This paper seeks to offer conceptual and empirical perspectives to contribute to an advancement of the CYR agenda in SSA. The conceptual framing draws on relevant scientific perspectives on the international human rights regime as well as on a scrutiny of salient population and development discourses and agendas for the Africa region. Building on these the framework: 1) Illuminates the extent to and ways in which the CYR agenda in fact concurs a...
This article examines why poor urban households utilize low-fee private schools despite the gover... more This article examines why poor urban households utilize low-fee private schools despite the government’s pro-poor free primary education program in Kenya. Cross-sectional data collected in 2010 through a demographic surveillance survey is analyzed. Students’ parents responded to questions concerning their perceptions of the quality of schooling after the introduction of free primary education. In total, 6,660 students living in 4,220 households are included in the analysis. A structural equation model was estimated to investigate how perceived quality of schooling, direct schooling costs, and distance to school affected the household’s choice of school. Results show that poor households utilize low-fee private schools because of physical convenience, rather than quality of education and/or low-fees charged. We conclude that enhanced accessibility to government schools among poor urban households and provision of capitation grants targeting children from these households rather than the schools are urgently needed.
Investment in sub-Sahara Africa's (SSA’s) youth through effective capacity development, invol... more Investment in sub-Sahara Africa's (SSA’s) youth through effective capacity development, involving adoption of contemporary skills development approaches, is integral in alleviating the region’s high youth unemployment rates as it will equip the youth with skills needed for employment. Skills that are needed are those that holistically develop the youth skills-set, including technical/hard and soft-skills, dubbed whole youth development (WYD) skills. This paper thus explores Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) students’ understanding of soft-skills and its development. The paper utilizes data collected from a TVET study in Kenya that was carried in 9 of the 47 counties, targeting learners aged 15–24 years. The selected counties were those that had national polytechnics for national representation, except one (Turkana county), which was selected to represent youth from marginalized counties. A descriptive cross-sectional study design was adopted for this study. ...
The free primary education policy has led to a significant increase in primary school enrollment ... more The free primary education policy has led to a significant increase in primary school enrollment in the country, from 8.6 million children in 2008 to 9.9 million in 2012. Increased enrollment complicated the work of teachers in the classrooms in the wake of FPE. This article seeks to document the challenges that teachers face in Kenyan classrooms across six urban sites in Kenya. Data come from the Education Research Program at the African Population and Health Research Center, collected in the months of January to March 2012. This article presents data from Focus Group Discussions, which were analyzed using thematic qualitative analysis. Results show that teachers across the six urban sites faced numerous challenges, with the most striking one being the process of evaluation by district quality assurance officers, who need to take into consideration the circumstances in which teachers teach in the schools across the country. Overall, the study called for the need to take the context...
Africa could benefit from the demographic dividend by identifying strategies for investing in the... more Africa could benefit from the demographic dividend by identifying strategies for investing in the massive youthful workforce. The current study employs the social cognitive career theory perspective to assess Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions’ curriculum coverage of various skills in Kenya. We further examine the relevance of the curricula to the labour market and barriers affecting institutions' capacity to implement practical-oriented and demand-driven curricula. A cross-sectional research design was adopted using a mixed-method approach to gather and analyse data. Findings revealed different levels of coverage of soft and technical skills in the curriculum. Inadequate resources, lack of modern equipment and technology, and minimal adoption of practical components in the curriculum were identified as barriers to acquiring skills, consequently affecting TVET students' capacity to secure employment. To promote requisite skills acquisition and ac...
<p>Introduction: The integration of an informative and inclusive monitoring, evaluation and... more <p>Introduction: The integration of an informative and inclusive monitoring, evaluation and learning process which requires appropriate tools and methods is crucial to the effective implementation of early childhood interventions. Most of the child development assessment tools that have been constructed for use in sub-Saharan Africa consider the need to be affordable and feasibly administered by those with limited previous experience. These tools include the Kilifi Developmental Inventory (KDI), the A-not-B task, the Developmental Milestones Checklist, and the Profile for Socio-Emotional Development (PSED) which each use different approaches such as direct child assessment, observation, and parental reports. Whereas these tools have demonstrated good psychometric properties, each of them focusses either on only one or two child developmental domains, does not adequately measure all aspects of the different domains that are theoretically affected by a risk factor or intervention, or is not in sufficient depth. We therefore constructed a tool that combined these separate measures into one assessment schedule – the Protocol for Child Monitoring – Infant/Toddler version (PCM-IT). We subjected the combined tool to a process of pilot testing and validation to establish its psychometric properties, the feasibility of administration and acceptability.Method: The framework of five aspirations (inclusive, informative, people-centered, dynamic and interactive) that guide effective intervention delivery mechanisms was used to structure the evaluation of the PCM-IT. The piloting of the administration of the PCM-IT was based on a proof-of-concept study with a multi-arm pre-post design in Kibera and Kangemi, while the validation study was carried out in Mathare. The three areas are informal settlements in Nairobi. The results of the pilot study informed the selection of items that were included in the validation study.Results: The timed items were too difficult for the children included in the study and were therefore excluded. Overall, the PCM-IT had excellent reliability levels. Children's raw sub-scale and overall developmental scores were normally distributed. There were weak to moderate correlations across the different domains. Speed and fluency of administration of items among the assessment team improved with practice and familiarity. The tool was perceived as providing holistic information about a child's performance. Conclusion: The aspirations of Measurement for Change including the need for a tool development and administration process to be inclusive, informative, people-centered, and dynamic were met to a large extent. The aspiration of being interactive would be better met through an exploration of the use of the tool to engage with families to strengthen the quality of their nurturing care practices.</p>
How to cite Complete issue More information about this article Journal's homepage in redalyc... more How to cite Complete issue More information about this article Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Scientific Information System
Indulgence in risky behavior is a reason for low academic performance. We hypothesized that four ... more Indulgence in risky behavior is a reason for low academic performance. We hypothesized that four constructs including academic aspiration, self-confidence, interest in schooling, and peer influence mediate the relationship between risky behavior and academic performance. Data are from 1256 school-going girls in urban slums who came from the lowest 40% of poor households. Results show that indulgence in risky behavior leads to low aspiration, low self-confidence, and low interest in schooling. The constructs mediate between risky behavior and academic performance even after accounting for covariates. The results imply that education practitioners can focus on soft-skills to enhance academic achievement.
Uploads