PERCEPTIONS OF PRINCIPALS, HEADS OF DEPARTMENTS AND TEACHERS REGARDING EFFECTIVENESS OF PRINCIPALS’ INSTRUCTIONAL SUPERVISION IN ASSISTING TEACHERS IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE CURRICULUM

The purpose of this study was to examine the Perceptions of Principals, Heads of Departments and Teachers Regarding Effectiveness of Principals’ Instructional Supervision in Assisting Teachers in the Implementation of the Curriculum.This study adopted Developmental Supervision Theory by Glickman et al. Descriptive survey design which embraces both quantitative and qualitative approaches, was used. The study was carried out in public secondary schools in Nairobi and Kajiado counties in Kenya. The sample comprised of the following: 38 principals, 151 heads of departments and 289 teachers. This gave a sample size of 478 respondents. Stratified random sampling was used in selecting schools according to the following strata: boys’ public secondary schools, girls’ public secondary schools and mixed public secondary schools. Simple random sampling was used to select principals, heads of departments and teachers for the study. The instruments used to collect data were: Interview guide for principals, Questionnaire for principals, heads of departments and teachers. The validity of the content was determined by seeking expert judgment from specialists in the department of educational management, policy and curriculum studies; while the reliability of the instruments were ascertained by using Cronbach’s alpha technique. The key finding of this study was that : principals did not have adequate skills and knowledge on how to implement the curriculum.majority of principals’ either performed diligently but did not use appropriate skills or they lacked knowledge and skills on how to conduct instructional supervision. It also established that principals faced issues and challenges mainly due to lack of funds and overloaded curriculum; which also interfered with the strategies they put in place to improve instructional supervision. Based on the findings, the researcher recommends that the TSC in connection with the MoE through the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) and Educational Management Institute should frequently organize in-service courses, seminars and workshops to train principals of secondary schools on curriculum development. This would allow them to perform their tasks effectively, and also guarantee effective instructional supervision in curriculum implementation in public secondary schools. The education policy makers need to re-examine the contents of the policy and guide on how instructional supervision could be improved. Secondly, training of principals on instructional supervision should be introduced.  Article visualizations

Household welfare, investment in soil and water conservation and tenure security: Evidence from Kenya

In Kenya, conservation and sustainable utilization of the environment and natural resources form an integral part of national planning and poverty reduction efforts. However, weak environmental management practices are a major impediment to agricultural productivity growth. This study was motivated by the paucity of literature on the poverty-environment nexus in Kenya, since poverty, agricultural stagnation and environmental degradation are issues of policy interest in the country¿s development strategy. The paper builds on the few existing studies from Kenya and explores the impact of household, farm and village characteristics as well as the development domain dimensions on household welfare and investment in soil and water conservation. The results show that strengthening the tenure security improves household welfare. Further, soil quality, topography and investments in soil and water conservation affect household welfare. Agroecological potential, which is related to environmental conservation, is also a key correlate of poverty. Results for investment in water and soil conservation confirm the importance of tenure security in determining adoption and also the intensity of SWC investments. We also find that household assets, farm characteristics, presence of village institutions and development domain dimensions are important determinants of adoption and intensity of soil and water conservation investments. The results for both poverty and investment in soil and water conservation suggest the existence of a strong poverty-environment link in our sample. The results also suggest that rural poverty can be alleviated by policies that improve environmental conservation and strengthen land tenure security. The study also underscores the importance of village institutions in both investment adoption of soil and water conservation and in improving household welfare

Navigating and negotiating ethnographies of urban hustle in Nairobi slums

This paper reflects on doing and writing ethnography on the urban margins, where uncertainty and provisionality mark the everyday city. The discussion is situated within a postcolonial approach to ethnographies of ‘hustle’ in Nairobi slums, critically reflecting on methodological choices made to facilitate the licence to linger in intimate and interstitial spaces of neighbourhoods often closed off to visitors. The paper argues that while urban ethnography is foundational to postcolonial scholarship on African cities, it is also vexed with tensions between ethnographic experience of the provisional and uncertain lived reality in which ethnographers seek to embed themselves for periods of time, and the ethnographic representation that emerges in the form of ethnographic authorship. The paper engages with the methodological tactic of engaging in waste work as an ‘apprentice researcher’; and with the theoretical choice of deploying the very vocabularies and expressions of struggle of interlocutors living and working in the ‘slums’ of Nairobi

Focus on delay as a strategy for care designs and evaluation of diabetic foot ulcers in developing countries: a review

Background: While foot care services for diabetic patients are necessary if limb morbidity and wastage are to be reduced, they may not be sufficient. Even when the few service centers and personnel that are available appear to be functioning relatively well, patients still face multiple barriers to derive maximum benefits from the services. Objectives: To review certain aspects of care of diabetes foot ulcers in developing countries with emphasis on causes of delay in care delivery. Data sources: Review of published literature on care of diabetic foot ulcers as well as our local experiences. Main outcome measures: Levels of potential or actual delay in care delivery and causes of such delay in pre-hospital phase, access to hospital and within-hospital phase of care. Data synthesis and conclusions: The barriers or causes of delay are observed to occur at various levels: decision to seek care, reaching the treatment facility and receiving the desired optimal care. The usual main causative/ risk factors that include peripheral neuropathy causes inattention and delays the decision to seek care; peripheral vascular insufficiency and infection are both involved in initiation of diabetic foot ulcers and are also major causes of delay in ulcer healing process. Aside from the processes unique to diabetes, the health care providers and the facilities of care have had major contributions in delaying the desired care of the foot ulcers. This may arise from heavy workload, priority illnesses, shortage of required supply for standard care and/or just wrong attitudes. Patients' inadequate knowledge of self-care, unique socio-economic and socio-cultural characteristics are also contributors to the barriers that compound sub-optimal foot care. Care programme designs that lay emphasis on causes of delay are more likely to seek to eliminate such causes. Just like justice, footcare delayed is foot (care) denied. East African Medical Journal Vol. 82(12) 2005: S204-S20