Teacher Performance Appraisal and Development (TPAD) was introduced in Kenyan public schools in 2016 to among others, give teachers an opportunity to improve on their performance competencies, provide support for their professional records and protect the rights and safety of learners. We used Zero Inflated Negative Binomial (ZINB) regression on a dataset of 110 secondary teachers in Matete Sub-County of Kakamega County, Kenya, to model capacity building course attendance following TPAD processes. The results suggest that teachers had too few capacity building courses, M=0.17, SD=0.69 with the number of courses ranging between zero and five for the 110 teachers who were sampled. In a nutshell, the policy implications from our results are discussed in this article.

The use of two different implementation approaches for the 2017-2021 Collective Bargaining Agreement of teachers casted doubts on equity in promotion because each union had its own approach. Given that there were two unions at post-primary level, the purpose of this study was to compare equity accruable between them in Kakamega County. The objective was to determine the difference in equity in grade promotion of post-primary teachers between the use of scheme of service and the career progression guideline approaches based on Teacher Performance and Appraisal Development tool between 2017-2021. It was guided by a socialist economics of education theory. A comparative research design with a sample of 1,569 respondents from 5,923 was used. Systematic random sampling was used to select teachers in each union, purposive sampling for principals and saturated sampling for sub-county directors of education and union secretaries. Through piloting, content validity was enhanced with internal consistency reliability of 0.877. In data analysis, pairwise correlation established plausible interactions of variables at α = 0.05 with membership in Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers being statistically insignificant to promotion (p˃.05) through logistic regression analysis. A Gini coefficient 0.0001 found a statistically significant difference (p≤.05) between the two unions with an extra score in 2017, and teaching in extra-county and national schools reducing the odds of promotion to the next grade. It was concluded that promotion was marginally equitable in Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers than in Kenya National Union of Teachers with gini coefficients 0.0567 and 0.0698 respectively.

The concept of human capital presupposes that formal schooling and experience enhances the productive capacity of individual workers through acquisition of knowledge and skills. Empirical studies on private rate of return to investment in education, around the world, indicate that an extra year in formal education has a positive benefit to the individual. This is in terms of increased lifetime earnings. Employing the Mincerian wage equation, this research article seeksto establish and empirically compare the private rate of return to investment in higher education for teachers in public secondary schools in Uasin Gishu County of Kenya. The research article employed a comparative research design. The target population and data sampling was taken from all the public secondary school teachers from the above County. Primary data from a sample of 574 secondary school teachers was collected by use of a questionnaire. The multivariate regression results showed years of schooling that negatively affected the private rate of return to schooling for secondary school teachers; while experience and experience squared had positive effect on private rate of return. Teachers who hold Diploma certificates earn an average of Kshs31, 231.250, Bachelor’s degree holders earn Kshs54, 047.879. The mean earning difference from teachers having Diploma certificates to teachers having Bachelor’s degrees was Kshs 22,816.629 (73.06%). The rate of return for a Diploma teacher was calculated at 4.20% and Bachelor’s degree at 8.37%. This research article suggests the presence of varying monetary benefits accruing to investment in higher education. Policy implications are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to find out whether household assets and amenities ownership has any effect on enrolment into public secondary schools in Kenya. The research design used was co-relational. The accessible study population comprised of 16,120 students from public secondary schools. A sample of 1,450 students was drawn from the population using Probability Proportion to Size (PPS) sampling technique. Questionnaires were used to collect data from the respondents. Multinomial logistic regression was used to measure the effect of household assets and amenities ownership on enrolment into public secondary schools. This study found that the number of rooms in the main house, wall, roof and floor material of this main house may affect enrolment in public secondary schools. Fetching water from rivers and springs as the main source of water for domestic use reduces the probability of joining county or national schools. Car ownership and availability of internet in the household increases the probability of joining county or national schools other than Sub county schools while DSTV connection and urban residence reduce the relative risk of enrolling in county or national schools compared with enrolling in Sub county schools. However, when other variables were controlled, this effect became insignificant and the main determinants of admission into the three categories of public secondary schools in Kenya emerged as student based-variables such as the student’s age at Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE), gender and KCPE scores .It was thus concluded that household assets and amenities ownership may not determine admission to sub-county, county or national secondary schools. Learners from the low SES category should be encouraged to work harder towards improving their academic scores in KCPE. Also they should avoid repeating classes as this does not increases the probability of such candidates being admitted to county or national secondary schools. It is recommended that that primary schools should endeavor to improve the KCPE scores of their candidates and avoid class repetition. Keywords: Households, Assets, Amenities, Enrollment determinants, Secondary school.

The past five decades have seen rapid expansion in academic achievement surveys with mixed findings and interpretation. Utilizing the education production function models, the surveys sought to test whether school or teacher-level variables explain academic achievement variance to a greater extent than student-level variables. Within this framework, we modelled teacher-level predictors of academic achievement in the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination in Mumias and Kuria East Sub-Counties in Kenya. Using a three-level hierarchical linear model (with 1824 students at Level-1 nested within 305 teachers at Level-2 who were themselves nested within 61 schools at Level-3), the results suggest that adjusting for Level-1 and Level-3 covariates, teacher age, the number of short in-service courses attended by the teachers in their respective subject areas and the number of formal written tests in those respective academic subjects have statistically significant effect on student academic achievement in the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education Examination. Policy implications of these findings are discussed.

Provision of technical subjects in secondary schools, in part, is aimed at assisting the graduates who miss out on higher education to easily transit to the world of work and more so in self-employment. This study thus sought to determine whether there is a relationship between the technical subjects and the type of self-employment engaged in by secondary school graduates (SSG's) in Kenya. The study used an exploratory-descriptive survey research design. Chi-square test was therefore used to determine the relationship on a sample of 393 SSG's of 2009–2011 in self-employment in Mombasa and Bungoma counties. Probability proportional to size (PPS) sampling technique was used to determine the sample size per county, subject and gender. We established that there is a significant difference between the technical subjects studied by the SSG's and the type of businesses they are engaged in. We recommend that technical subjects be made compulsory in schools and each student should be encouraged to produce at least one marketable product or service, and such product should be put up for exhibition organized by the ministry of education in each district. This will further create motivation for entrepreneurship skill acquisition among the SSG's.

Provision of technical subjects in secondary schools is part of an effort by the Kenya government to equip secondary school graduates (SSG’s) with technical and entrepreneurial skills. This is aimed at assisting the graduates who miss out on higher education to easily transit to the world of work. We ran a Multinomial logistic regression (MLR) on a data from a sample of 186 teachers and 393 SSG’s (SSG’s) in order to determine the factors influencing the choice of technical subjects among the SSG’s in Kenya. The study was carried out in Mombasa and Bungoma counties with the SSG’s of 2009, 2010 and 2011.We established that; school type, gender, parents’ occupation, the school location and whether students are told the subject objectives or not were the main driving factors that influenced the choice of technical subjects at school level. We recommend that adequate academic and career guidance and counseling should be given to students before they select subjects in schools. Efficient guidance and counseling departments should therefore be set up in schools to render appropriate academic and career counseling services to students.

This paper describes the design and methodology used to assess the impact of free primary education (FPE) policy in Nairobi, Kenya. The key outcome of the study was to assess the impact of FPE on schooling outcomes among the urban poor. The study assesses the impact of FPE by examining how two non-comparable groups responded to the introduction of the policy. Retrospective data were collected for 2000-2004, while prospective data has been collected annually since 2005. This household survey has created both cross-sectional and longitudinal data sets. This provided an opportunity to assess factors, other than lack of fees, which associate with school enrolment and retention. The strength of this paper is in demonstrating how survey design can be utilized to assess the impact of a public policy between different population groups. Based on the design and methodology used in this Nairobi case study, the paper provides lessons on how to utilize household surveys to assess policy impacts.

This article contributes new evidence on factors associated with low achievement among pupils in urban informal neighborhoods in Nairobi, Kenya. The authors use three different data sets to examine the effect of residence in particular neighborhoods, pupil gender, primary school type, and household socioeconomic status on pupil achievement in the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination results for 2005 and 2006. Results suggest that residence in Nairobi’s informal neighborhoods of Korogocho and Viwandani, enrollment in a public school, and one’s gender, if female, are the strongest explanatory variables for low achievement. Policy implications from the study results are discussed.

Progress towards universal primary education by 2015 is monitored by primary school enrolment rates survival rates to grade 5 and youth literacy rates. For the period 2000-2004 official statistics show Nairobis primary school gross and net enrolment rates as being much lower than any other province in Kenya. Nairobis informal settlements (slums) are estimated to be home to over 50% of the citys population and are largely served by low cost private community and non-formal schools managed by individual entrepreneurs communities and non-governmental organizations. This paper examines Nairobis slum and non-slum primary school enrolment rates and their under-reporting in government statistics. The study was conducted in two slum settlements (Korogocho and Viwandani) as well as in two non-slum sites (Jericho and Harambee) in Nairobi. A total of 13882 children aged 5-19 years were identified in 2005 regardless of whether or not they were in school in the four geographically-defined study sites.The study used retrospective schooling history data for six years (2000-2005) collected within the longitudinal framework of the Nairobi Urban Health and Demographic Surveillance System. Data were collected on a range of issues in modular form using five questionnaires each addressing a specific theme. For children aged 5 6 7 8 and 9 years in 2005 only data for one (2005) two (2005 and 2004) three (2005-2003) four (2005-2002) and five (2005-2001) years were collected starting in 2005 respectively. For those aged 10 to 19 years data for six years (2000-2005) were collected. We use these data to calculate the gross and net enrolment rates as well as the Gender Parity Index (GPI) and rate of underreporting of these enrolment rates in government statistics for the four sites in 2005. The results show high gross enrolment ratios of 100.7% and 106.8% for the slum and non-slum sites respectively for 2005. The net enrolment ratio is equally high at 83.3% and 94.5% for the slum and non-slum areas for thesame year. These are however under-reported in government statistics by up to 23.3% for all the four sites. At an average of 1.08 for the period 2000-2005 the GPI values in the slums are in favor of girls while the opposite is true for the non-slum sites at an average GPI value of 0.93 in favor of boys. This evidence shows that Nairobis enrolment rates are quite high contrary to official statistics which show these as much lower compared to the rest of the country. We largely attribute these low enrolment rates to under-reporting. (authors)

We ran logistic regression on a data from a sample of 186 teachers and 393 secondary school graduates in order to explore the relationship between entrepreneurial skills acquired by graduates from technical subjects taught in secondary schools in Kenya and the graduates’ self-employment. The study was carried out in Mombasa and Bungoma counties with the secondary school graduates of 2009, 2010 and 2011. We find that the odds ratio of a secondary school graduate starting a business from the entrepreneurial skills acquired while at school increase by approximately three times if they acquired business planning skills from the technical subjects. Since each student takes at least one of the 10 technical subjects on offer, we recommend that in the light of these findings, the teaching of technical subjects at secondary school level should be strengthened with more practical work being required of the students to equip them with the necessary skills for further training at tertiary level or the world of work after secondary school.