Access to basic education in conflict-prone communities is a significant challenge in Kenya. Empirical reviews had suggested that, during intercommunal conflicts, various factors influencing access to basic education were compromised. However, these influences manifest differently in distinct situations and locations. There has been limited research on how access to basic education was affected following intercommunal conflicts in Kapedo, Turkana County. The study aimed to examine the effect of family income levels on learning of primary school going children in Kapedo ward in Turkana County- Kenya. The study drew on three theories: Relative Deprivation theory, System Resource Theory, and Hierarchy of Needs Theory. It employed a descriptive survey research design, covering the entire population with two Ministry of Education officials, four headteachers, and twenty-four teachers as respondents. Data collection used a semi-structured questionnaire and an interview schedule, ensuring voluntary participation, confidentiality, and clarity of the studys purpose. The analysis combined descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentages, and averages) and inferential statistics (regression analysis) and presented results through charts and tables, with qualitative data analyzed thematically. The study revealed that family income affected education, with conflict-induced economic instability leading to resource allocation challenges and school attendance issues, especially for girls. The study recommends that the Ministry of Education and Local Authorities maintain the provision of essential learning resources, emphasizing administrative functionality, classroom safety, and resource access to enhance learning outcomes. Non-Governmental Organizations and Donors should support programs to address economic challenges during conflicts, offering financial assistance, livelihood opportunities, and scholarships for childrens education. KEY WORDS: Family Income Levels, Learning, Access to Basic Education, Primary School Going Children, Intercommunal Conflicts
Introduction & BackgroundApproximately 617 million children and adolescents worldwide do not possess the foundational skills to live healthy and productive lives. Sub-Saharan Africa is profoundly affected, resulting in social and financial dependency and raising vulnerability to forced marriage, female genital mutilation, and mental health issues. Contextual factors are considered critical in this crisis, yet have received little attention due to a currently insurmountable deficit in traditional census and survey data. Digital footprint data offers a potential route to filling this information gap - particularly in education- and how a learner’s environment can impact digital learning and future well-being. To address the crisis, the ‘Global Learning’ XPRIZE competition challenged teams to develop software empowering marginalised out-of-school children to learn literacy and numeracy skills. Five finalist teams tested their technology with 2041 children using handheld tablets in 172 remote villages in Tanzania. Objectives & ApproachOur study examined factors that can predict improvements in learning outcomes, building on the digital footprint data collected from the children participating in the device intervention in the form of app usage and locational and activity data. Additional geospatial features were engineered based on village coordinates, distance to local amenities, services and transport, variables serving as additional potential indicators of isolation and connectedness. These data were linked with child-level factors, including household composition and literacy levels. After comparative assessment of machine learning regression models, tree-based models (XGB, RF) were used to establish the optimal predictive performance for literacy and numeracy. Variable importance using SHAP was used to determine which specific contextual variables should be considered before deploying digital interventions to support education and well-being. Relevance to Digital FootprintsUtilising digital footprint data to quantify the influence of geospatial and contextual data in digital interventions can offer comprehensive insights to understand and address factors impacting learning outcomes in this context. ResultsPrior school attendance, home reading environments and high familial literacy were found to be predictors of higher learning outcomes after a technology-based learning intervention. Environments featuring an unemployed caregiver and few siblings were surprisingly consistent positive predictors, suggesting accompanying and focussed caregiver support as valuable for effective development via digital interventions. Proximity to police stations and health centres were revealed as key predictors, indicating the importance of social and physical connectedness in positive learning environments. Conclusions & ImplicationsTargeted improvement of EdTech provision with out-of-school learners promises to help the development of learning outcomes in remote villages and reduce vulnerabilities to correlated social and health issues. However, positive outcomes can only be achieved when appropriate supporting environments surround interventions.
Bethany Huntington, Nicola J. Pitchford, James Goulding
This study compared primary school preparedness of urban and rural preschool children in Kisumu county, Kenya. Children were assessed on their level of learning and development in the following domains: pre-academic skills (pre-literacy and pre-mathematics, executive function, and socioemotional cognition. The sample consisted of 390 preschool children who had completed their curriculum and were transitioning to Grade One. Children were assessed using an adapted and validated form of the Measurement of Development and Early Learning (MODEL) global item set. We hypothesized that urban children would score higher on all domains of learning and development than rural children. Results showed that indeed urban children were more prepared for primary school than were rural children in all the domains of learning examined in this study. In order to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4 on equitable quality education that ensures life-long learning for all, county and national government should invest in early childhood development and education (ECDE) in both rural and urban so that all boys and girls can be ready for primary education and improve future outcomes for all children.
Aim: The aim of the study was to determine the kind of work school children do, and to identify factors that predict engagement in child labor. Study Design: A descriptive survey research design was employed. Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted in ten schools selected from four divisions and one administrative town in Wolaita zone from January 2017 to February 2018. Methodology: Data were obtained from 120 students (6th-8th graders), who were randomly selected to respond to the questionnaire while interviews were conducted with 10 principals. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson Correlation and Linear Regression. Results: Findings revealed that children combined work and schooling where main activities included; doing household chores, carrying materials in the town, agricultural activities (cultivating), hotel work and selling lottery tickets. Reasons for engaging in child labor were linked to poverty, need to help the family, parents’ low education, large family size and students’ need for money. Findings revealed that the consequences of child labor were; dropping-out, low academic performance and low participation in the classroom. To an extent, absenteeism, getting late to school and repetition were also observed. Factors such as having a parent or not, individual and family characteristics predicted whether a student actively participated in schooling or not. Conclusion: Strategies to counteract child labor practices require persistently working with parents in matters of their children education. The government, non-government organizations and local agencies should work collaboratively to enlighten the society on dangers and consequences of child labor. Besides, the government should look for ways to improve the infrastructure to create job opportunities for the community, in addition to enforcing child labor laws. At the institutional level, students should be given support through guidance and counseling on issues related to work and schooling.
Ermias Shirko Otaye, Mary Wairimu Thuo, Tegegn Hailu
This study explores the associations between childhood growth measures and maternal participation in agricultural decision-making in chronically food-insecure semiarid Kenya. We collected anthropometric measures from 221 mother and child pairs. Maternal participation in agricultural decision-making was measured in a follow-up study. Using Kruskal–Wallis H test and Dunn’s pairwise comparison, we find a statistically significant positive association between child growth and maternal participation in agricultural decision-making. Similar associations are found when controlled for social–demographic variables, particularly among poor households, male-headed households, daughters, children 6–16 months old, and mothers with normal body mass index. The research contributes to our understanding in the nexus of agriculture, gender dynamics, and childhood undernutrition in rural African contexts.
June Y. T. Po, Zipporah Bukania, Lutta Muhammad et al.
Children in Ethiopia are faced with crippling economic conditions aggravated by lack of access to basic services. Household economic strengthening initiatives, such as savings groups (SG), seek to enable poor households to improve their livelihoods and mitigate vulnerability. This study unpacks the mechanisms between SG participation by caregivers of highly vulnerable children and children’s wellbeing with a focus on education, nutrition, health, and happiness. From the perspectives of caregivers and adolescents, the study contributes to a slim body of evidence on how SGs facilitate vulnerable children’s wellbeing. In-depth interviews conducted with 48 SG participants and 33 adolescents yielded descriptive pathways of how SGs affected the household, caregiver and children. We find that caregivers and adolescents tell similar stories, linking wellbeing with livelihoods, though adolescents also link wellbeing with SG training and raising caregiver awareness. This study yields rich information on how SG participation opens and/or smooths pathways to better economic and non-economic wellbeing for participants and their children, supporting SGs as a means to facilitate child wellbeing.
BACKGROUND: Resistance, prolonged therapy, and more adverse reactions made amoxicillin less preferred for treating otitis media. This study aimed to compare the efficacy and safety of azithromycin and amoxicillin/clavulanate for the treatment of otitis media in children. METHODOLOGY: This study was a systematic review and meta-analysis. PubMed, Cochrane library, and Google scholar databases were searched. Comparative randomized clinical trial studies between azithromycin and amoxicillin/clavulanate to treat otitis media in children published up to 30 September 2019 were included. The risk of bias was assessed and Data was extracted by the first author and checked by the second author. Meta-analysis was performed by STATA software version 16, and Mantel-Haenszel statistical method with effect measure odds ratio was employed for analysis. RESULT: 751 records were identified and 14 studies were eligible for analysis. In 12 studies azithromycin had equivalent clinical efficacy and 2 had less to amoxicillin/clavulanate. Meta-analysis results showed no statistically significant difference in efficacy in favor of amoxicillin/clavulanate after completion of treatment OR 0.75, 95% CI (0.62-0.91). On subgroup analysis for children less than 2 years (OR 0.96 95% CI (0.49-2.29), and greater than 2 years (OR 1.40 95% CI (0.93-2.11) and also efficacy on follow up (OR 0.97 95% CI (0.83-1.15) there is no statistically significant difference. The clinical adverse events are more in the amoxicillin/clavulanate group than in the azithromycin with a statistical significant difference OR 0.46 95% CI (0.43-0.56). CONCLUSION: Azithromycin is comparable to amoxicillin/clavulanate to treat otitis media in children, and it is safer and more tolerable.
This study explores teachers’ perceptions, experiences, and challenges on teens ages 12-14 years old who have reported online insecurity issues in Kenya. The study recognizes that teachers have increased pressure to teach learners digital skills and manage their online and offline lives. Although much of the online insecurity discourse is children centric, little is known about the teacher’s experiences when tackling teen’s online safety issues. Outside the minimal discussion, an inferential approach towards the demarcation of online insecurity is reached that is coined on the professed notion of internet safety. Data was generated using an in-depth interview with respective teachers, Guidance & counseling, ICT teachers, and school principal. A total of twenty-three participants were recruited who qualified for the study inclusion criteria. A qualitative intrinsic case study was employed, and data analyzed thematically. The findings from the study revealed that teachers lack online safety competency skills to protect teens. Therefore, they depend on the very learners they are supposed to protect to teach them to navigate digital platforms. It is imperative to integrate online digital insecurity in the Kenya curriculum to develop workable frameworks to support teens who have encountered troubles on the internet. The study recommends effective digital literacy instruction intervention for teachers to support the children in the online space effectively. Additionally, in-depth research exploring parents’ responses to online challenges while protecting children is a gap that needs to be filled.
The study examined the relationship between child labour participation and household wealth (in terms of livestock and cropland) considering representative sample smallholders from four (Kurfa Chelie, Kersa, Fedis, and Melka Bello) districts in eastern Hararghe Zone of Oromia regional state of Ethiopia. The descriptive statics showed that average family size was 5.45 individuals per household, which was larger than the national average (4.9) in 2016. In the study area, children with age interval of 4–14 years, that were the subject matter of this study, constituted 43.3% of the total population. Around 23% of sampled households spent less than 2471.22 Birr per annum per adult equivalent for home consumption, which is an amount based on the inflation adjusted poverty line. Households in Fedis district experienced the worst poverty head count score, wherein 44% of them could not satisfy the minimum living standard requirement. Double-hurdle model result revealed that livestock and cropland holding of smallholders significantly affect child labour participation in domestic work. This finding implies that household’s asset ownership (possession of larger livestock and cropland) would not initiate children to budget more time for their education. The model result also showed that household head’s education level significantly reduced children’s domestic labour participation in the study area. Thus, this research recommended that there should be improvement in households’ education and awareness level in the study area to improve child school enrolment. Finally, it is easy to say that the Wealth Paradox about child labour holds true for smallholders in eastern Ethiopia.
Abstract The majority of economies in Sub-Saharan Africa are heavily dependent on rain-fed agriculture. This paper examines the impact of positive and negative rainfall shocks on child labour in agricultural households in Ethiopia. We use the timing of survey collection and rainfall in Ethiopia's two growing seasons to investigate both immediate and more long-term (after several months, in the harvest/post-harvest period) effects of rainfall variation. Using household panel data matched with geospatial rainfall data, we find that child labour is higher in the harvest/post-harvest period after a positive main-season rainfall shock and lower after a negative one. This effect is found both for agricultural activities and time spent collecting water and firewood and for both boys and girls, suggesting that households adjust child labour supply in response to changes in labour demand caused by rainfall shocks. The immediate impact of a negative Belg-season rainfall shock is also to decrease child labour. Time spent on agricultural activities decrease for both boys and girls, but the effect is stronger for boys. Furthermore, child labour responses to rainfall shocks are accompanied by effects on school attendance and absenteeism. We also investigate whether Ethiopia's public works program or access to local credit markets appear to mitigate the impact of rainfall shocks on child labour. Our results suggest that they do not.
