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We present results from early learning programs in six African countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda. In partnership with ministries of education, RTI International has worked within government systems to support the design and deployment of locally contextualized materials, training, and assessment tools, with the goal of improving outcomes for early learners in primary schools, and in Kenya and Tanzania preprimary as well. Here we report on the experience and...

This paper uses difference-in-difference and multivariate analyses procedures to examine the effects of two community-based intervention packages on mathematics achievement of primary school girls from low-income urban households in Kenya. The data involved in this study were collected between 2013 and 2015 from 748 12-19 years old primary school girls residing in two major Nairobi slums of Viwandani and Korogocho. These data were part of a larger intervention study that sought to improve...

Kenya’s post-colonial education system, like many in Sub-Saharan Africa, has endured many challenges. High enrollment in primary schools is often coupled with low completion rates in secondary and postsecondary education. In this article we examine some of the processes that may lead to the disempowerment and disenfranchisement of youth in Kenyan schools, and report on a new approach that we call “Uhusiano Design for Learning”. Uhusiano Design focuses on three aspects of learner-centered...

We evaluated a program to improve literacy instruction on the Kenyan coast using training workshops, semiscripted lesson plans, and weekly text-message support for teachers to understand its impact on students' literacy outcomes and on the classroom practices leading to those outcomes. The evaluation ran from the beginning of Grade 1 to the end of Grade 2 in 51 government primary schools chosen at random, with 50 schools acting as controls. The intervention had an impact on classroom...

This study investigated the relationship between socio-economic status, school-level variables and mathematics achievement of sixth graders in Kenya and Zimbabwe. The study is based on secondary data collected by the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ III). SACMEQ employed cluster-sampling procedures to collect data from 4412 students in 193 schools in Kenya, and 3021 students in 155 schools in Zimbabwe. A multilevel model (Hierarchical linear...

This article discusses the findings of an empirical study that investigated the writing practices in a multilingual, rural, fourth-grade classroom in Kenya. The study was undergirded by Bakhtin's heteroglossia. Analysis of texts indicated that these emergent multilinguals used multiple semiotic resources to maximize the chances of meeting the communicative goals through translanguaging. However, the translanguaging process in writing was a tension-filled process in terms of language...

This article discusses the findings of an empirical study that investigated the writing practices in a multilingual, rural, fourth-grade classroom in Kenya. The study was undergirded by Bakhtin's heteroglossia. Analysis of texts indicated that these emergent multilinguals used multiple semiotic resources to maximize the chances of meeting the communicative goals through translanguaging. However, the translanguaging process in writing was a tension-filled process in terms of language...

This paper provides a critical appraisal of the influence of examinations oriented approaches on quality education in primary schools in Kenya. The purpose of the study was to determine effects of examination oriented teaching approaches on learning achievement among primary school pupils in Kakamega County, Kenya. It explored the assumptions underlying pedagogical approaches as well as the negative influences of exam-oriented approaches in Kenyan schools. Examination oriented approaches...

To throw light on the challenge of providing education to pastoral households in the context of social and economic change, this study investigates the effects of herd migration on child schooling in Northern Kenya. Specifically, the analysis uses both household panel data and community-level focus-group data to identify the barriers to schooling, which include an insufficient number of schools, nomadism and communal conflicts. The results also reveal that herd migration has a significantly...

School outcomes and good performance in different subjects depends on children's ability to read. Thus teaching children on how to read during early grades is critical in promoting learning to read. More advanced skills acquired in later grades depend on early grade learning, so children who do not acquire these reading skills in their early grades struggle to acquire more advanced skills usually absorbed through reading. This article reports findings of a study conducted in rural public...

The aim of this study was to explore the professional development needs of lecturers at Kenyan universities. Specifically, the study investigated the challenges that lecturers and their learners face while in class. It also explored the professional development needs of the lecturers, preferred modes of delivery of the professional development programs and changes that lecturers need to effect in their practice of teaching in order to improve student learning outcomes. The study was guided...

The aim of this study was to explore the professional development needs of lecturers at Kenyan universities. Specifically, the study investigated the challenges that lecturers and their learners face while in class. It also explored the professional development needs of the lecturers, preferred modes of delivery of the professional development programs and changes that lecturers need to effect in their practice of teaching in order to improve student learning outcomes. The study was guided...

Education researchers working in sub-Saharan Africa have recently and rapidly expanded the availability of evidence related to the impact of educational interventions on learning outcomes, particularly in preprimary and lower primary education (Ganimian & Murnane, 2016; McEwan, 2015; Popova, Evans, & Arancibia, 2016). Awareness that literacy and numeracy skills are essential for children to succeed throughout their educational career, and of the tragically poor learning outcomes for many...

Previous large-scale education technology interventions have shown only modest impacts on student achievement. Building on results from an earlier randomized controlled trial of three different applications of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on primary education in Kenya, the Tusome Early Grade Reading Activity developed the National Tablets Program. The National Tablets Program is integrated into the Tusome activity by providing tablets to each of more than 1,200...

Educational research has linked parental participation in children�s schooling with a wide range of children�s academic outcomes. Parental involvement involves time and resource commitment towards children�s academic performance. This paper extracts data from a cross-sectional survey involving 2,669 grade six students attending public and private primary schools serving households located in Iganga�Mayuge health and demographic surveillance system in rural Eastern Uganda. The paper adopts...

This paper examines effects of life-skills, mentoring, and counseling education intervention implemented among primary school attending girls aged between 10 and 19 years, living in Nairobi slums. We hypothesized that interaction between the intervention and aspiration, self-confidence and interest in schooling, mediates the impact of risky behavior on academic performance. This quasi-experimental study had two treatment arms of 538 girls and one comparison with 272 girls. The first...

This study investigates the activities of a village-based literacy centre in Kenya and explores the benefits of community development activities on women's well-being in Africa. Through the analysis of the stories of two Maasai women who had experienced adult literacy learning, the author discovered that: (1) the literacy instructor had inadequate in-service teacher training support from the government; (2) these women were using a space generated by collaborative informal learning through...

Research in sub-Saharan Africa investigating the effect of mother tongue (MT) literacy instruction at medium scale is limited. A randomized controlled trial of MT literacy instruction was implemented in 2013 and 2014 as part of the Primary Math and Reading (PRIMR) Initiative in Kenya. We compare the effect of two treatment groups--the base PRIMR program teaching literacy in English and Kiswahili and the PRIMR-MT program, which taught literacy in English, Kiswahili, and mother tongue--in two...

Research in sub-Saharan Africa investigating the effect of mother tongue (MT) literacy instruction at medium scale is limited. A randomized controlled trial of MT literacy instruction was implemented in 2013 and 2014 as part of the Primary Math and Reading (PRIMR) Initiative in Kenya. We compare the effect of two treatment groups--the base PRIMR program teaching literacy in English and Kiswahili and the PRIMR-MT program, which taught literacy in English, Kiswahili, and mother tongue--in two...

The purpose of the present report is to show a comprehensive diagnosis of the situation of two low-cost private schools (Destiny and Saint Martin's schools) located in two slums (Mathare and Kibera) of Nairobi, capital city of Kenya, that Educafrica's team found before starting a collaboration programme through field volunteers work. A wide variety of instruments were used in order to collect data that captures all the complexities of schools that deals with contexts of deep scarcity of...