Laikipia University

This study examines intermodal relations between textual and visual resources in hashtag activism tweets, focusing on Kenya’s #JusticeForKianjokomaBrothers anti-police brutality campaign. Integrating Martinec and Salway’s system of image-text relations with Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis, the research examines a corpus of 495 multimodal tweets to identify status and logico-semantic patterns and their ideological functions. The findings show a predominance of equal status relations, indicating co-constitutive meaning-making process in which text and visuals carry balanced communicative weight. Elaboration emerged as the most frequent logico-semantic relation, realised through exemplification, content, contextual, and emotional strategies that grounded protest claims and intensified affect. Extension occurred through additive, clarifying, and illustrative forms, reflecting how users expanded discourse under Twitter’s character constraints. Enhancement was realised through causal and emotional relations, mobilising affect and strengthening persuasion. This study provides an empirically grounded methodological elaboration of Martinec and Salway’s framework, demonstrating how intermodal relations structure protest narratives and their ideological positioning. It provides an analytical basis for comparative research across digital protest movements.

This study examines the relationship between tax policy-making processes and stakeholder inclusion in Kenya, with a focus on fiscal legitimacy and taxpayer compliance. The analysis draws on a document corpus comprising national budget statements, Finance Acts, public participation reports, parliamentary committee proceedings, and policy briefs produced between 2013 and 2024, a period marked by significant fiscal reforms, including Value Added Tax (VAT) restructuring, digital service taxes, and the introduction of the iTax platform. Using an exploratory qualitative design, the study applies thematic document analysis, combining inductive and deductive coding to identify patterns in institutional frameworks, participation practices, and accountability mechanisms. The study utilises Governance Theory together with Public Choice Theory and Stakeholder Theory frameworks to explain how stakeholder inclusion in tax policy-making shapes fiscal legitimacy. Findings show that participation is largely procedural, with formal hearings and memoranda not consistently influencing final policy; representational disparities are significant, as 62% of submissions came from large corporations and professional bodies, while only 18% were from civil society and informal sector groups; and feedback opacity persists, with limited reporting on how inputs shape policy. Second, representational inequality is reflected in the disproportionate influence of large corporate actors and professional associations, compared to limited engagement with informal sector groups and marginalized taxpayers. Third, the lack of systematic reporting on how public inputs shape policy outcomes creates feedback opacity, which weakens transparency and trust. The study finds that fiscal legitimacy is more likely to be strengthened where participation is early, inclusive, and accompanied by transparent feedback loops. It argues that the quality, not merely the presence, of stakeholder inclusion constitutes a key mechanism linking tax policy processes to compliance outcomes. By elucidating the influence of procedural design elements of participation on legitimacy, the study enhances the discourse on governance and public finance by proposing a process-oriented framework for understanding fiscal legitimacy in developing nations.

Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) has increasingly gained global and national recognition as a vital pathway for skills development, youth employment, poverty reduction, and sustainable development. Anchored in Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) of the United Nations 2030 Agenda, this paper examines the developments and challenges of TVET in Kenya between 2015 and 2024, focusing on its contribution to achieving SDG 4 targets. Using a desk review methodology, the study analyzes government policy documents, national economic surveys, and scholarly literature across four key areas: policy and historical evolution, institutional growth, enrolment trends by gender, and financing mechanisms. Findings indicate that Kenya has made considerable progress in expanding the TVET sub-sector through increased public investment and private sector participation. Student enrolment has risen significantly, with notable improvement in female participation, gradually narrowing the gender gap. Government financing through the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB), institutional capitation, and the student-Centered Funding Model has enhanced access and equity for disadvantaged learners. Policy and legislative reforms, including the TVET Act No. 29 of 2013 and the Competency-Based Education and Training (CBET) curriculum, have strengthened the sector’s regulatory and curricular framework and improved alignment with labour market demands. However, challenges such as inadequate funding, poor infrastructure, shortage of qualified trainers, curriculum–labour market mismatch, persistent gender disparities, negative societal perceptions, and limited inclusion of learners with disabilities continue to hinder effectiveness. The paper recommends increased equitable funding, stronger industry partnerships, trainer development, gender-responsive interventions, and integration of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) principles into TVET curricula.

This study investigates the prevalence of non-heteronormative identities and the associated stigma experienced by undergraduate students at Laikipia University, Kenya. Amidst a contested legal and social landscape, this research provides critical empirical data on a "hidden" student population. Grounded in Minority Stress Theory and Social Identity Theory, the study utilized a descriptive survey design with snowball sampling to recruit 194 undergraduate students. Findings indicate that while 91.7% of respondents identify as heterosexual, a significant minority (8.3%) identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or other non-heterosexual identities. The study reveals a hostile campus climate characterized by high rates of verbal harassment (87.6%) and instances of physical assault in off-campus housing. Crucially, data on identity management shows a sharp disparity in disclosure: students are significantly more likely to be "out" to peers than to family members, reflecting a strategic response to the threat of rejection. The paper concludes that "institutional silence" exacerbates minority stress and recommends the implementation of explicit anti-discrimination policies, safe zones, and inclusive curriculum reforms to align university practice with the constitutional mandate of non-discrimination.

This paper presents a rigorous Lie symmetry analysis of the seventh-order Kaup–Kuperschmidt equation given by ut+2016u3ux+630ux3+2268uuxuxx+504u2uxxx+252uxxuxxx+147uxuxxxx+42uuxxxxx+uxxxxxxx=0 which arises as a higher-order nonlinear evolution equation describing nonlinear wave propagation, dispersive media, and integrable physical systems. The study employs the classical Lie group approach to systematically determine the admitted infinitesimal symmetries of the equation. The total derivative operators and seventh prolongation of the infinitesimal generator are utilized in the invariance criterion to derive the determining system governing the infinitesimal coefficients. The admitted Lie algebra and corresponding one-parameter transformation groups are obtained explicitly. Furthermore, similarity reductions are employed to transform the governing partial differential equation into ordinary differential equations, from which exact invariant solutions are constructed. In addition, exact power series solutions are determined to characterize local analytic behavior of solutions. Stability remarks and qualitative physical interpretations of the resulting wave structures are discussed. The results reveal the underlying geometric structure of the seventh-order Kaup–Kuperschmidt equation and provide exact analytical tools for understanding nonlinear dispersive dynamics.