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 contexts of the respective schools into consideration even as they visit schools to ensure that teachers adhere to the quality assurance and standards procedures. This is because different schools have different teachers implementing the curricula. […]
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Many adolescent girls in Kenya and elsewhere face considerable risks and vulnerabilities that affect their well-being and hinder a safe, healthy, and productive transition into early adulthood. Early adolescence provides a critical window of opportunity to intervene at a time when girls are experiencing many challenges, but before those challenges have resulted in deleterious outcomes that may be irreversible.
The Adolescent Girls Initiative-Kenya (AGI-K) is built on these insights and designed to address these risks for young adolescent girls. The long-term goal of AGI-K is to delay childbearing for adolescent girls by improving their well-being. […]
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The ages 10-14 years are among the most critical for human development, yet early adolescence is one of the most poorly understood stages of the life course. While the biological processes are universal, the social contexts within which they occur vary considerably. During this transition, young people are expected to assume socially defined gender roles that shape their sexual and reproductive health futures.
A cross-country longitudinal comparison offers a unique perspective on the commonalities and differences of the social processes shaping young people’s health and particularly the ways in which gender norms inform adolescent sexuality. The focus is on low-income adolescents primarily in urban settings—a vulnerable and fast-growing population worldwide.
Findings from this study will inform policy makers, program planners, parents, teachers, health and social service providers and adolescents themselves in the design of interventions that consider the unique strengths and challenges of this population. […]
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The study aimed to examine the schooling patterns of children living in rural settlements in Uganda as well as the quality of the education they receive. Specifically, the study sought to identify the key barriers that have the most effect on learning outcomes. The ultimate anticipation is that the evidence generated through this study will be used by policymakers to improve the provision of quality basic education for all children living in rural settings in Uganda. […]
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Preschool is a term used to describe early childhood education programs that serve children in their early ages (3-6 years), before they are of legal age to join primary school. Research evidence indicate that children gain a lot from preschool by gaining basic foundation skills required for learning, especially at the lower primary school level (see for example La Paro & Pianta, 2000; Sylva et al., 2004).
The objective of this policy brief is to examine the effects of preschool attendance on learning achievement of students attending primary schools in two rural districts of Iganga and Mayuge in Uganda. […]
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Increasing the number of children attending primary schools has topped the global development agenda since the turn of the century, with the commitments established by the Millennium Development Goals enhanced by the momentum of the Education For All initiative.
Many countries across sub-Saharan Africa have made laudable progress in boosting enrolment; in Uganda alone, the number of children in primary school increased by 28% between 2000 and 2010. This success, however, appears to have come at a cost; global consensus acknowledges that the quality of education has declined substantially during that period.
These declines have been widely attributed to the quality of teaching in these now highly subscribed schools. The challenge, therefore, is to understand how well teachers are going about the business of teaching – and what effect this will ultimately have not only on the quality of education but on the learning outcomes of the growing numbers of students. […]
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Globally, the high prevalence of overweight and low levels of physical activity among children has serious implications for morbidity and premature mortality in adulthood. Various parental factors are associated with childhood overweight and physical activity.
The objective of this paper was to investigate relationships between parental education or overweight, and (i) child overweight, (ii) child physical activity, and (iii) explore household coexistence of overweight, in a large international sample. […]
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The study aimed to examine the schooling patterns of children living in rural settlements in Uganda as well as the quality of the education they receive. Specifically, the study sought to identify the key barriers that have the most effect on learning outcomes. The ultimate anticipation is that the evidence generated through this study will be used by policymakers to improve the provision of quality basic education for all children living in rural settings in Uganda.
This is the longer, detailed version of the report. […]
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This report describes the baseline findings of an external evaluation of the Tayari pre-primary school programme. Tayari is an early childhood development and education (ECDE) intervention funded by the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF). The intervention is implemented by the RTI International, in partnership with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST), and in collaboration with four counties.
The programme, which runs from January 2016 to October 2017, aims to develop a cost effective, scalable model of ECDE that ensures children who are preparing to join primary grade one are cognitively, physically, socially and emotionally ready to start, and succeed in primary school. The programme focuses on improving school readiness as defined by learners’ literacy, numeracy, psychosocial and executive function skills and targets preprimary schools in both public and Alternative Provision of Basic Education and Training (APBET) centres in four Kenyan counties: Laikipia, Nairobi, Siaya and Uasin Gishu. As the programme’s external evaluator, the role of the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) in Tayari is to assess the: (a) impact of the programme on preparing children for primary school; and, (b) cost-effectiveness of the programme. […]
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A Doctor of Philosophy, which most people know as a PhD, is the highest academic accolade. It demands a substantial […]
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For two days in February, I was privileged to lend a hand to 139 girls from Nairobi’s Viwandani and Korogocho slums. […]
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Join the Kenya Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST), African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), Innovations for Poverty Action […]
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By Caroline Kabiru, Research Scientist, APHRC via GEAS Newsletter While adolescence is a much-studied period of life, we know relatively little […]
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Introduction Delaying sexual debut has proven life time benefits. On the contrary, early sexual intercourse has been positively associated with […]
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When Riziki was just 13, a door was opened to her. Born and raised in the Viwandani slum in the […]
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APHRC brings the young and old together in Nairobi to discuss inter-generational issues Bringing together youth aged between 20 and […]
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The Education Research Program at APHRC in collaboration with the Iganga Mayuge Demographic and Health Surveillance System (IMHDSS) in Uganda […]
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Many adolescent girls in Kenya face considerable risks and vulnerabilities that affect their education status, health, and general well-being. The Adolescent Girls Initiative–Kenya (AGI-K) will deliver multi-sectoral interventions for over 5,000 girls ages 11–14 in two marginalized areas of Kenya: 1) Kibera slums in Nairobi and 2) Wajir County in Northeastern Kenya. Implemented by Plan International in Kibera and Save the Children in Wajir, these interventions will be implemented for two years and will comprise a combination of girl-level, household-level, and community-level interventions. A randomized controlled trial (RCT) will be used to compare the impact of four different packages of interventions, together with their costs, in order to assess if and how intervening in early adolescence will impact girls’ life chances. This report describes the intervention and research design of AGI-K as well as the findings from the baseline survey. […]
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There is a new brand of educational entrepreneur emerging in Nairobi’s slums: privately owned and run schools that promise particularly […]
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I recently met my longtime friend Kidizz, after quite a long time. I first met him back in 2004, when I […]
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By Namuunda Mutombo, Associate Research Scientist, APHRC Half of Mozambique’s population which is aged below 25 years, is characterized by […]
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By Shem Mambe, Field Supervisor, APHRC Isn’t it a village feat to see girls thrive in academics and society? More […]
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Little is known about patterns of secondary schooling among the urban poor. The data related to secondary school transition is not disaggregate by gender or by school type. APHRC collected data on an intervention study to understand transition to secondary school among the urban poor girls. The aim of the intervention study is to identify effective interventions for improving learning outcomes and transition to secondary for urban girls living in Korogocho and Viwandani which are the two urban slums in Nairobi. […]
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The overall goal of this study was to improve learning outcomes and transition to secondary school through community participation and after-school support among disadvantaged girls in urban informal settlements of Nairobi. The three-year improving learning outcomes and transition to secondary school study began in 2013 and is set to end in 2015. The study is being implemented in two informal urban settlements of Nairobi, Kenya called Korogocho and Viwandani, by two CBOs: Miss Koch and U-Tena respectively. The evaluation was conducted by APHRC. The baseline survey was conducted in June 2013, and the intervention started in July of the same year. A mid-term evaluation survey was conducted in May and June 2014, and the end-term in June and July 2015. The expected outcomes of the study were: improved learning outcomes and transition to secondary schools for girls in grades six, seven and eight from poor households. The end-term evaluation was conducted with the aim of establishing the impact of the study after three years of implementation. […]
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From a recent study by APHRC and the Iganga Mayuge Health and Demographic Surveillance System (Uganda) public schools were found […]
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