CW-Department of Educational Management Policy & Curriculum Studies

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Browsing CW-Department of Educational Management Policy & Curriculum Studies by Author "Chege, Fatuma N."

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    Being young, Kenyan and gendered: the outcomes of schooling and transitions to adulthood in poor urban and rural settings
    (2009-09) Chege, Fatuma N.; Arnot, M.; Wainaina, Paul K.
    This paper which is derived from findings of the Education, Youth, Gender and Citizenship (YGC) project1 foregrounds the experiences and outcomes of schooling as constructed through the voices of young female and male Kenyan youth aged between 18 and 25 years who lived in conditions of relative material poverty in one of the urban communities of the study2. Using qualitative data mainly from interviews, the paper demonstrates how young men and women from impoverished families and communities constructed the outcomes of their schooling, demonstrating the realities of how they negotiated their daily lives and experiences that were build upon some broken promise from a formal education that had failed to deliver them –and their families- out of the cycle of poverty. The expressed need to transform their lives by break out of the cycle of poverty while at the same retaining a sense of belonging to their families and local communities - ‘home and family’ – formed the dominant discourse in the voices of the young women and men –most of who seemed eager to project and be heard. The study findings capture articulations of the value attached to formal education as a communal and individual investment even when the experience of schooling was itself portrayed as a failure in delivering the economic expectations of this young generation of hopeful Kenyan women and men. The explicit difference between young people’s educational aspirations and expectations of schooling vis-àvis the realities of its outcomes as experienced in their daily lives provided the young people a point of departure in interrogating other non-economic benefits of schooling – which in one way or another enhanced their well-being and made them different from the non-schooled peers. Findings demonstrated that the level of schooling –primary and secondary- influenced the articulation of non-economic (social and human development) outcomes of schooling. Gender also seemed to influenced the manner in which the social and human development outcomes of schooling were played out among the youth with the young men presenting themselves as community focused in terms of seeking ways to transforming their environments while the young women were keen in changing their own lives and of their offspring. Thus, the route for escaping poverty was constructed differently between the women and the men while articulation of the means of escape was considerably more concretised among the youth with secondary education. It is in this context that this paper interrogates the implications of different levels of schooling among young Kenyan women and men who live in poor urban settlements.
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    Citizenship education and political engagement: voices of Kenyan youth from Nyeri and Nairobi
    (2005-09) Chege, Fatuma N.; Wawire, V. K.; Arnot, Madeleine; Wainaina, Paul K.
    Education plays a major role in equipping individuals with skills that enable them to participate fully as citizens in society. This paper interrogates this in the context of the nature of political engagement for schooled young persons living in impoverished rural and urban settings in Kenya. Using qualitative methods that include focused group discussions and interviews, young people are given a chance to express their views on how education has enabled them to enact their citizenship. They discuss their political identifications, their rights as citizens, and the failure to achieve these, the effects of schooling on their feelings of belonging and inclusion and the perceived potential of second chance education in helping them move forward. The findings indicate that while the Kenyan education system is designed to shape young people’s civic consciousness, varying schooling experiences based on socio-cultural and geographical divides determine the level to which they are able to enjoy their citizenship rights and see possibilities of achieving full citizenship. Young people voice concerns to government which centre on unemployment, security and the importance of listening to young people, which if addressed would improve the civic education outcomes of young people living in impoverished communities. The expressed faith in a perceived necessary link between education and the attainment of full citizenship creates a running theme in the discourse shaping discussions with the youth.
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    Effects of girl-focused programmes on boys’ schooling
    (2011-10) Chege, Fatuma N.; Sakurai, R.; Likoye, Francis
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    Organizational Barriers Influencing Female Mobility in Secondary School Management in Machakos, Isiolo and Meru Counties, Kenya
    (Kenyatta University, 2015-05) Guantai, H. K.; Onyango, G. A.; Chege, Fatuma N.
    The issue of women under-representation in management positions in all sectors including education has aroused scholarly interest globally in recent times. Statistics from the Teachers Service Commission of Kenya (2010) revealed that only 1,178 (24.5%) of the 4,800 public secondary schools in Kenya were headed by female principals. This is way below the minimum of 30% allowed by the Constitution of Kenya of 2010. The purpose of the research on which this paper is based was to identify the organizational barriers and coping strategies that influenced female mobility to principalship in Meru, Machakos and Isiolo counties. The key objective of the study was to identify the organizational barriers faced by secondary school female principals in these counties. The study employed descriptive survey design. The target population for the study was 825 persons. A sample size of 400 respondents was used for the study. Data were collected using questionnaires and interview schedules. Qualitative data was analyzed thematically while quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS. The major finding of this study was that organizational practices, culture, lack of mentoring, tokenism and “old boys” networks that locked out female counterparts were the main organizational barriers that secondary school female principals encountered as they ascended to principalship in the three counties. Further the study further found that additional training and female principals remaining focused on their work were among the coping strategies that were embraced to overcome the barriers encountered. The study recommends embracing the policy of gender mainstreaming to counter organizational cultures that are characterized by male dominance and discrimination against women so as to increase women visibility in top level positions in school management in Kenya
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    Researching Gender: Explorations into Sexuality and HIV/AIDS in African Contexts
    (Research Consortium on Educational Outcomes and Poverty, 2007) Chege, Fatuma N.
    The author demonstrates that collaborating with children using a gender-sensitive life-cycle approach yields social and health dividends. The paper focuses upon young people and children engaged in HIV/AIDS education, not only as consumers of information but also as generators of knowledge pertinent to their needs, aspirations, anxieties, fears, hopes and dreams. This subject centred approach to education is facilitated by innovative methodologies that allow young people to talk frankly with adults and amongst themselves, to participate in community theatre designed to help different types of people address issues of common interest, and to work with experienced adult researchers in generating relevant data.
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    Youth citizenship, national unity and poverty allev iation: East and West African approaches to the education of a new generation
    (Research Consortium on Educational Outcomes and Poverty, 2009) Chege, Fatuma N.; Casely-Hayford, L.; Arnot, Madeleine; Dovie, D. A.
    Youth citizenship is now on the international agenda. This paper explores what that concept might mean in the context of two African nations: Kenya and Ghana. Post independence, both countries focused on rethinking the colonial concept of citizenship in line with their political-cultural traditions, providing education for all youth and to encouraging new notions of national citizenship. Programmes for civic education were established that have been reshaped over the last fifty years. These citizenship education programmes display the tension between different political goals of national unity, economic progress and the promotion of human rights, working with diversity, and encouraging collective responsibility and individual development. The aim is to use the education of the citizen to encourage civic engagement although there is evidence that these programmes might not, for a variety of reasons, engage all young people into the nation building project. The paper considers evidence from a wide range of documentary and social scientific sources to open debate about how to encourage young people’s citizenship within the project of poverty alleviation.