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The education system in Kenya is continually challenged to adapt and improve, in part because its mission has become far more ambitious than it once was due to the massive investment in education by successive governments over the last two decades. Today, most Kenyans expect schools to prepare all students to succeed in postsecondary education and to prosper in a complex, fast-changing global economy. To identify the most important measures for education and other issues and provide quality...

This research is related to Education Development Trust's Department for International Development-funded Girls' Education Challenge (GEC) programme in Kenya. Complementing the monitoring and evaluation data gathered for the programme, this research was funded by Education Development Trust to enrich and develop a deeper understanding of girls' experiences at school in Kenya. It explores aspects of school and schooling that affect the participation and learning of marginalised girls in the...

Implicit theories can influence learning behavior, the approaches individuals take to learning and performance situations, and the learning goals individuals set, as well as, indirectly, their accomplishments, intelligence, and creativity. For this cross-cultural study, Kenyan and German students were asked to draw a creative person and rate it on a number of attributes. The data indicated considerable differences among the implicit theories according to students' gender and nationality....

A workforce that can adapt to the fast changing global dynamics is critical for sustainable growth and development. Secondary level segment in the education cycle of a Kenyan plays a key role in the development of this workforce and is important since it de-links one from elementary (primary) learning, provides a chance for one to complete the cycle of basic education and anchors as a springboard to either tertiary or higher learning. The study focused on the relationship between subsidized...

School-based improvement programs represent a core strategy in improving education because they can leverage pre-existing social and organizational structures to promote coordinated and comprehensive change across multiple facets of schooling. School-based programs are generally designed to be implemented by intact schools/districts, frequently making it infeasible or atheoretical to assign students within the same school to different conditions while ensuring study validity. Rather, studies...

Education in Kenya requires rethinking as the country faces the demands of educational and socio-economic transformation of the 21st century. One of the general objectives of primary education in Kenya states that primary education should provide the learner opportunities to acquire literacy, numeracy, creativity and communication skills. There is evidence from research reports that the objective has not been fully met. A number of learners go through the primary school course without...

Roughly 350,000 refugees, over 90% of them Somali, lived in five sprawling camps in Dadaab, Kenya in 2015. In the Dadaab refugee camps, families had unique experiences of disability, education, women's roles, and involvement with International Non-Governmental Organization (INGO) programming. INGOs provided a variety of basic services including education such as the program analyzed here for parents of children with disabilities. Many children with disabilities in the refugee camps faced...

Roughly 350,000 refugees, over 90% of them Somali, lived in five sprawling camps in Dadaab, Kenya in 2015. In the Dadaab refugee camps, families had unique experiences of disability, education, women's roles, and involvement with International Non-Governmental Organization (INGO) programming. INGOs provided a variety of basic services including education such as the program analyzed here for parents of children with disabilities. Many children with disabilities in the refugee camps faced...

Reading proficiency has been identified as one of the most reliable indicators of whether a learner will attain the competence needed to achieve academic success and contribute actively to society. Research findings in Kenyan primary and secondary schools reveal inadequate reading skills among the students. There are different approaches in teaching of reading in early learning. The study sought to establish teachers' orientation in reading instructions in early childhood settings and...

In recent years, action on sustainability has been highly influential around the globe and many now recognize the importance of individual and social learning for inspiring action and achieving sustainability outcomes. Transformative learning theory has been criticized, however, for insufficient development of the link between learning and action. The purpose of this paper is to deepen our understanding of the learning-action cycle among adult learners in the sustainability context. We...

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...

In order for children to acquire meaningful education, families are advised to participate in learning activities at home. Such activities range from monitoring homework, problem-solving to reading with children during leisure time. But home-learning was claimed to receive little attention from key stakeholders among primary schools in Kenya's Kakamega County. This study therefore, was meant to explore the home-learning practices in the sampled schools. A review of the literature relevant to...

In order for children to acquire meaningful education, families are advised to participate in learning activities at home. Such activities range from monitoring homework, problem-solving to reading with children during leisure time. But home-learning was claimed to receive little attention from key stakeholders among primary schools in Kenya's Kakamega County. This study therefore, was meant to explore the home-learning practices in the sampled schools. A review of the literature relevant to...

This paper is an overview of the writing skill in the lower levels of learning in the contemporary society. The following areas of writing are highlighted: the writing programme and its goals, the basic methodology for writing tasks, broad groups of writing skills, the teaching of the writing skills in pre-primary and primary schools where controlled and guided composition writing are seen as the main types of composition and lastly the punctuation, testing and marking of written tasks.

This paper is an overview of the writing skill in the lower levels of learning in the contemporary society. The following areas of writing are highlighted: the writing programme and its goals, the basic methodology for writing tasks, broad groups of writing skills, the teaching of the writing skills in pre-primary and primary schools where controlled and guided composition writing are seen as the main types of composition and lastly the punctuation, testing and marking of written tasks.

If children do not learn how to read in the first few years of primary school, they at greater risk of dropping out. It is therefore crucial to identify and test interventions that have the potential of making a large impact, can be implemented quickly, and are affordable to be taken to scale by the Kenyan government. This paper presents the findings of three randomized controlled trials designed to improve student literacy outcomes in Kenya. Two of the studies have multiple data points, two...

Despite rapid growth in literacy-related programmes and evaluation in sub-Saharan Africa, little critical attention has been paid to the relevance of assumptions that underlie existing assessment methods. This study focuses on the issue of timing in the assessment of oral reading fluency, a critical component of successful reading (Chard, Vaughn, & Tyler, 2002; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), 2000; Pikulski & Chard, 2005). Within the context of the Primary...

Despite rapid growth in literacy-related programmes and evaluation in sub-Saharan Africa, little critical attention has been paid to the relevance of assumptions that underlie existing assessment methods. This study focuses on the issue of timing in the assessment of oral reading fluency, a critical component of successful reading (Chard, Vaughn, & Tyler, 2002; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), 2000; Pikulski & Chard, 2005). Within the context of the Primary...

This paper describes the development and intended uses of the Early Grades Mathematics Assessment (EGMA), which measures essential early mathematical knowledge and skills that are foundational to more sophisticated mathematical abilities, predictive of later achievement, and teachable. Administering the EGMA can provide policy makers, practitioners, and researchers with information about whether existing educational policies, curricular reforms or programs, and instructional interventions...

This was a descriptive survey study design which sought to establish the school based factors that affect the learning of Kenyan Sign Language in primary schools for learners with hearing impairment in Embu and Isiolo counties in Kenya. The target population was all teachers teaching in primary schools for learners with hearing impairment in the two counties. From the selected schools, the study purposively and randomly sampled 2 head teachers and 8 teachers respectively. Interview guides...