Search

In recent decades, school performance ranking (or 'league table') have become a common feature of many education systems in the world. The ranking is usually published by government and news agencies in an attempt to measure and compare the relative performance of individual schools against a number of criteria, including academic performance. This paper reports parts of larger case study that set out to investigate teachers' and students' perceptions of performance ranking in secondary schools in Kenya. The study participants were teachers and students of Mathematics drawn from secondary schools in Embu County in Kenya. Data were gathered through one-on-one semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and surveys. The transcriptions of the audio-recorded interviews and focus group discussions were analyzed by first reading the texts of the transcriptions holistically, followed by the development of codes, organizing the codes into larger categories and, finally, organizing the categories into overarching themes. This paper, in particular, examines the research findings through the lens of the existing literature on school performance rankings. The paper demonstrates how school performance rankings in Kenya have been abused over the years to the detriment of quality teaching and learning. Finally, the paper highlights the implications of school performance ranking for policy and practice.

Establishing how cognitive conflict is manifested by students is an important first step in understanding how teachers can utilize cognitive conflict to improve students' learning experiences. This paper presents findings from the analysis of qualitative data drawn from a larger study that explored the role of cognitive conflict in promoting students' conceptual development in mathematics. The study participants were secondary school mathematics students and their teachers drawn from twenty-five public secondary schools in Embu West Sub-County in Kenya. Data were gathered through surveys and semi-structured interviews. The interviews were transcribed and coded, followed by organization of the codes into categories that were used to develop themes. The findings indicate that students experienced cognitive conflict in three significant ways: a moment to (co) construct one's mathematical meaning, confusion as a result of teacher's behaviorist stance, and a fleeting moment of magic. The paper recommends that teachers should take advantage of cognitive conflict as a strategy for scaffolding mathematics learning by giving students tasks that provoke critical thinking so that as students work on the tasks, their naïve understandings of the concepts are challenged.

Teaching strategies have a significant influence on students' academic performance. This paper presents results from a qualitative study that examined the effects that performance ranking in Mathematics has on teaching strategies employed in Mathematics classrooms. In particular, the paper demonstrates how performance ranking disguises and legalizes inappropriate Mathematics teaching strategies. The participants for the study were Mathematics teachers and students in secondary schools in Embu County in Kenya. Face-to-face semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions were employed in data collection. Results showed that due to competition by teachers to achieve a higher mean score, they engaged in examination malpractices such as leaking examination questions to students. Secondly, teachers' desire for excellence in their subjects, and achieving top rank to receive prizes was found to be another reason behind teaching students to pass examinations rather than for conceptual understanding. Additionally, the study revealed that performance ranking promoted private tuition to offer assistance to the weak students in Mathematics to improve performance in the subject. This paper recommends that the practice of ranking should be tailored to include all the aspects.

Personality types and practices are presumed to play a significant role in the improvement of schools' performance. This paper presents the findings from the analysis of quantitative data drawn from a larger study that examined the relationship between headteachers' personality types, instructional supervision practices, and performance. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design to collect data by utilizing a self-developed and Self-Directed Search (SDS) questionnaire that participants answered. A census sampling was conducted with 71 and 37 headteachers from Embu East and West public primary schools, respectively giving 108 participants. The data collected was analyzed using SPSS for descriptive and inferential statistics. Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was used to determine any relationship between personality types, instructional supervision practices, and schools' performance. The findings of the study revealed a significant statistical relationship between enterprising personality types and schools' academic performance (r =0.125*, p<0.05). Further, the results revealed that there is a positive (r=0.229, P<0.05) relationship between realistic personality type and holding parents-pupils-teachers' conferences while among conventional types, there is a negative (r=-0.223, p<0.05) correlation in giving teachers feedback. The significance of this study is that headteachers' personality types do not influence instructional supervision practices, which is a unique finding indicating that other factors influence instructional supervision practices.

One of the major challenges facing secondary education sub-sector in Kenya over the years is low transition rate from primary to secondary level of education. This has contributed to low enrolment at secondary schools with a wide gap existing between primary and secondary enrolment. With the introduction of Free Primary Education in 2003, the gap would have widened further if efforts were not made to enhance access to secondary education. Low enrolment had been occasioned by introduction of the cost sharing policy in 1988. The government of Kenya, through sessional paper No.1 of 2005, made a commitment to increase transition from primary to secondary school from 49 to 70% by the year 2010. This would be made possible by the government supplementing parents' efforts in meeting education costs at secondary level. The government supported the poor and needy students through bursaries. Further, tuition free secondary education policy was implemented in 2008 with the government's commitment to pay tuition fees for all students enrolled at secondary level. The government has also made efforts to enhance access by providing bursary funds to the needy to meet other educational needs charged above tuition fees through the constituencies. With the government efforts, transition rate to secondary level of education has since increased from 59.6% in 2007 to 70% in 2010. The cost of education in Kenya has continued to escalate over the years due to rising cost of living. Many people from the low income group are finding it difficult to sustain their children in secondary school hence lowering gains made in transition. This paper utilizes secondary data to critically analyze financing of secondary education in Kenya. In particular, the paper discusses the impact of the tuition free secondary education and bursary schemes on enrolment in secondary schools in Kenya. It also analyses the strengths and weaknesses of these programmes in enhancing access to secondary education.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest incidence of child labor in the world and estimates show that it continues to grow. This paper examines the causes and magnitude of child labor in Kenya. Unlike previous studies that examined child labor as only an economic activity, this paper includes household chores. Including household chores is important because majority of child labor takes place within the household. The paper finds that socioeconomic status and structure of the household have a strong effect on child labor. Also, a large proportion of working children attend school. If the consequence of working is to hinder educational attainment, then policymakers need to focus to this dimension of educational inequality: Between students who combine work and school and those who do not. (Contains 9 tables.)

Non-formal education, defined as any organized educational activity outside the established formal system whether operating separately or as an important feature of some broader activity that is intended to serve identifiable learning clienteles and learning objective is of great importance to society. It emerged out of the feeling that formal systems were failing in some aspects like irrelevant curriculum and other socio-economic problems. Owing to the dynamics of education in society today and the need to develop new approaches to non-formal education within the context of life long learning, development of non-formal education programmes for the out of school youth in Kenya is necessary. This paper discusses the need for a renewed approach to non-formal education for out of school youth. In the paper the definition and development of non-formal education is discussed highlighting the challenges and gaps in its development in Kenya. The problems and challenges facing the Kenyan out of school youth are highlighted. Recommendations are made on how best to design and implement non-formal education programmes to benefit a wider clientele of the out of school youth and adults. (Contains 2 tables.)

Poverty which can be defined in terms of extreme, moderate and relative poverty is a threat to existence of humanity in modern times especially in the developing world. Worst hit are countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The millennium development agenda set to reduce poverty by a half by the year 2015. This expresses the global commitment in ensuring the living standards of mankind. In Kenya the wish to alleviate poverty has been articulated since independence through various sessional papers, commissions, taskforces and development plans. Several proposals have been made in these documents on how to reduce poverty. However, the challenges of poverty still abound in Kenya. These challenges threaten provision of social services among majority of Kenyans who total about 56%. One of the basic social services which is highly threatened is the provision of quality education. This paper articulates the issue of poverty in provision of quality education. Causes, characteristics, and effects of poverty in Kenya are discussed. Indicators of quality education are discussed along with the government's efforts to reduce poverty and realize provision of education to most of the deserving citizens. Conclusions are drawn from the discussions and recommendation made on how best to address the affects of poverty in the provision of quality education. (Contains 2 tables.)

In recent years, instructional supervision has been given a great deal of attention in teacher education professional literature. However, few reported studies have specifically focused on desired qualities of instructional supervisors, especially in Third World countries. This paper reports the perceptions of teachers, headteachers and senior government education officers regarding skills and attributes of internal instructional supervisors in public secondary schools in Kenya. Findings indicated the following major desired skills and attributes of internal instructional supervisors: (a) ability to lead by example; (b) high integrity; (c) knowledge about delegation; (d) knowledge about public relations; (e) supervisory skills; and (f) competence in teaching subjects. In addition, headteachers, as instructional supervisors, should be qualified and experienced teachers. The reported findings are part of a large-scale qualitative and quantitative survey research undertaken in Kenya to determine the perceptions of headteachers, teachers, and senior government education officers regarding the practices of internal instructional supervision and staff development in Kenyan public secondary schools.

This paper reports the results of research conducted in six classes (Form IV) with 205 students with a sample of 94 respondents. Data represent students' statements that describe (a) the role of Mathematics teachers in a computer-assisted instruction (CAI) environment and (b) effectiveness of CAI in Mathematics instruction. The results indicated that: majority of students incline towards constructivist Mathematics teaching-learning beliefs in a CAI environment; and CAI would encourage positive attitude towards Mathematics and instruction while negative attitudes are attributed to the design and development of CAI software among others. Prior student computer experience and skills are determinants for effectiveness of CAI in Mathematics instruction. The recommendations are that CAI catalyses a constructivist environment in Mathematics, and design and development impacts on its success in Mathematics instruction. (Contains 5 tables.)

The Kenyan society is experiencing a lot of conflicts, some with devastating effects such as deaths, starvation, disease and destruction. These normally arise out of difference between people. Secondary schools being part of the society have not been left out of this challenge as evidenced by mass media reports on strikes, demonstrations and resulting closures. This being the formative age of the youth who are the majority of the Kenyan population according to 2009 census results, the opportunity of their being in school may be exploited by the society to address conflicts as a major challenge to peace today. The Ministry of Education can impart a curriculum that would perpetuate peaceful conflict management skills in the youth. So far, this has evidently not been done adequately creating gaps for mishaps such as the 2008 post-election violence, whereby if the international community had not timely sent the former United Nations Organization Secretary General, Koffi Annan of Ghana who mediated to resolve the conflict, Kenyans would have ended up in self- destruction. Police have been called in by various authorities, severally, to quell riots and disperse demonstrators across the country. Many people have been, sentenced to death, life in prison, jailed or fined by Kenyan courts due to their poor conflict resolution methods. A peaceful environment would facilitate achievement of "millennium development goals" at the international level, and the vision of industrialization by 2030 in Kenya. It is against the backdrop of the importance of conflict management skills to Kenyans that this paper is addressed. (Contains 1 table.)

The question of relevance regarding education in human society is perennial. In the developing countries, education is considered to be a panacea for development. In Kenya, various efforts at curricular review and reform have time and again been undertaken to address the relevance of education. This paper attempts to analyze Nyerere's theory of education with the view to render salient ideas that can contribute towards the formulation of worthwhile theories of education in the context of Kenya's 21 century realities. Accordingly, Nyerere's views, namely, "education for self reliance" and "education for liberation" are analyzed. Consequently, it is evident that contemporary education in Kenya is inadequate in several ways. It is therefore recommended that education in Kenya should embrace a multidimensional orientation that ensures the liberation of the individual, leading to the attainment of self reliance.

The use of computer technology in Kenyan schools is a relatively new approach that is currently being included in the school curriculum. The introduction of computer technology for use in teaching does not always seem to be accepted outright by most teachers. The purpose of the study reported in this paper was to investigate the teachers' changing roles in double entry lessons that involved the use of a computer-based instruction (CBI) program. A total of sixteen business education teachers taken from ten secondary schools situated in two provinces, Rift Valley and Western teaching double entry for a period of eight weeks. Two instruments, namely (i) the Teachers Interview Schedule (TIS) and (ii) the Classroom Observation Questionnaire (COQ) were used to collect the necessary data. Data was collected and analysed to help unravel what was actually happening as the teachers and the students interacted with the computer-based instruction program and/or instructional materials during double entry lessons implemented in real business education classrooms. Results indicate that the teachers developed better instructional practices as a result of augmenting double entry lessons with the CBI. Most teachers unanimously reported that their role changed from that of being an instructor to that of being a facilitator of the learning process. Although it was evident from a captured episode that amidst the presence of the computer most teachers preferred to do the job in the same way as the conventional methods without all the effort associated with organizing a technological classroom, data from classroom observation of teacher-student, student-student and student-teacher interactions recorded during the instructional process indicated that the teachers did not dominate in the CBI classrooms but gave learners opportunity to interact with each other and the instructional material. The results further showed that some of the unproductive activities and the state of confusion or silence often common in traditional classes where the role of the teacher is domination changed drastically. The use of CBI in this study proved that it has potential not only to change the teachers' roles but also to affect the students' learning in business education. (Contains 2 tables.)

As a nation, Kenya hopes to achieve Education for All (EFA) by the year 2015. This is an uphill task given the various challenges in the education sector. The year 2015 is also significant globally because it is the target year for the fulfillment of the eight-millennium goals. Kenya looks forward to have her people achieve the millennium goals together with other people worldwide. The pivotal hinge for these important target goals is education levels of the people involved and look forward to benefit from the fruits of EFA, millennium goals and industrialization. For such matters therefore, Kenya is trying her best to have her people educated. The secondary school segment in the education cycle of a Kenyan is important for three major reasons: a) It de-links one from elementary (primary) learning. b) It provides a chance for one to complete the cycle for basic education. c) It anchors as the springboard to either tertiary or higher learning. However, pandemic secondary school dropout in Kenya is alarming. For instance, in a period of ten years, 1992-2002, every secondary school cohort suffered not less than ten percent school dropout e.g. the highest dropout rate for the girls was fifty percent in the 1997/2000 cohort. The average dropout and completion rates for girls in the period under consideration were twenty percent and eighty percent respectively. For the boys they were fourteen percent and eighty-seven percent respectively. Some of the reasons that lead to the pandemic secondary school dropouts have been elucidated in this paper. They include poverty, early pregnancies/marriages, HIV/AIDS, drug-abuse and low-self esteem. Importantly, every secondary school dropout in Kenya signifies unfulfilled objective, goal, and aim for the individual as well as for the community at large. Emerging from this fact is perhaps a crucial question, where do the individuals who dropout of the learning cycle without basic education go? Alternatively, what do these persons do wherever they go? The most critical issue in this conundrum is perhaps the role of secondary school principals. In their endeavor to check dropout rates and concurrently enhance retention rates, they ought to change their managerial approaches to suit this twenty-first century that is apparently full of challenges to secondary school retention of students. In this article, the author discusses some of the approaches secondary school principals (managers) may use to alleviate dropout rates in Kenya. There is hope. (Contains 13 tables and 4 figures.)