Relative Contribution of Different Levels of Parental Involvement to Primary School Readiness in Preschool Pupils in Nairobi County

Recent developments have led to a lot of emphasis being placed on early childhood education. Massive growth has also occurred in this segment of the education sector. Emphasis continues to be placed not just on growth but also on quality of the educational experiences that children are exposed to. In Kenya reports continue to emerge of pupils in primary school who lack numeracy and literacy competencies expected at their level. This inevitably shines the spotlight on the quality of educational experiences at the preschool level, which lays the foundation for all future learning and later success in school. One of the parameters of quality is parental involvement. In Kenya this parameter happens to be amongst the least understood. This paper sought to shed some light on the contribution of this aspect of quality to primary school readiness in preschool pupils in Nairobi. Parental involvement at six levels of involvement was measured for a sample of 150 parents of preschool pupils, while primary school readiness was assessed for a sample of 156 pupils. The results indicate that four of the six levels of parental involvement have a positive correlation to primary school readiness, while two are negatively correlated. The researcher recommends that schools and educators explore ways of creating and enhancing parental involvement so as to tap into the associated and recognized benefits of such cooperation. Keywords: Parental involvement, primary school readines

Local Participation in Community Forest Associations: A Case Study of Sururu and Eburu Forests, Kenya

Participation of local communities in the management and utilization of state-owned forest resources has become widely recognized in contrast to centralised forms of forest governance. This paper examined the extent of inclusiveness and household participation in community forest associations (CFAs) adjacent to Sururu and Eburu forests in Kenya. The probit model was used to assess the socio-economic factors determining participation in the CFAs. The study established that gender (P<0.05), group membership (P<0.0001), ownership of tree nursery (P<0.0001), wealth status (P<0.0001), percentage share of wage income (P<0.05), and farm size allocated to trees (P<0.05) significantly influenced CFA participation. However, because of high opportunity participation costs some poor (68%) and rich (65%) households did not participate in CFA activities. Since households participated in CFAs to derive livelihood gains, unclear participation benefits offered little incentive to get involved. Thus participation in CFA activities remained low. Therefore, Kenya Forest Service should review participation guidelines to enable effective CFA input in decision making on forest issues. Keywords: Community; inclusiveness; household; participation; user groups; participatory forest managemen

No Apparent Reduction in Schistosome Burden or Genetic Diversity Following Four Years of School-Based Mass Drug Administration in Mwea, Central Kenya, a Heavy Transmission Area

<div><p>Background</p><p>Schistosomiasis is a debilitating neglected tropical disease that infects over 200 million people worldwide. To combat this disease, in 2012, the World Health Organization announced a goal of reducing and eliminating transmission of schistosomes. Current control focuses primarily on mass drug administration (MDA). Therefore, we monitored transmission of <i>Schistosoma mansoni</i> via fecal egg counts and genetic markers in a typical school based MDA setting to ascertain the actual impacts of MDA on the targeted schistosome population.</p><p>Methods</p><p>For 4 years, we followed 67 children enrolled in a MDA program in Kenya. Infection status and egg counts were measured each year prior to treatment. For 15 of these children, for which there was no evidence of acquired resistance, meaning they became re-infected following each treatment, we collected microsatellite genotype data from schistosomes passed in fecal samples as a representation of the force of transmission between drug treatments. We genotyped a total of 4938 parasites from these children, with an average of 329.2 parasites per child for the entire study, and an average of 82.3 parasites per child per annual examination. We compared prevalence, egg counts, and genetic measures including allelic richness, gene diversity (expected heterozygosity), adult worm burdens and effective number of breeders among time points to search for evidence for a change in transmission or schistosome populations during the MDA program.</p><p>Findings</p><p>We found no evidence of reduced transmission or schistosome population decline over the course of the program. Although prevalence declined in the 67 children as it did in the overall program, reinfection rates were high, and for the 15 children studied in detail, schistosome egg counts and estimated adult worm burdens did not decline between years 1 and 4, and genetic diversity increased over the course of drug treatment.</p><p>Interpretation</p><p>School based control programs undoubtedly improve the health of individuals; however, our data show that in an endemic area, such a program has had no obvious effect on reducing transmission or of significantly impacting the schistosome population as sampled by the children we studied in depth. Results like these, in combination with other sources of information, suggest more integrated approaches for interrupting transmission and significantly diminishing schistosome populations will be required to achieve sustainable control.</p></div

A summary of the demographic characteristics of 67 children investigated including their gender, age at baseline, and pre-treatment egg counts (average eggs per gram of feces determined by Kato-Katz) at each of the four annual treatment periods.

<p>A summary of the demographic characteristics of 67 children investigated including their gender, age at baseline, and pre-treatment egg counts (average eggs per gram of feces determined by Kato-Katz) at each of the four annual treatment periods.</p

Temporal estimates of schistosome burdens of fifteen school aged children enrolled in a mass drug administration program in which they are treated annually.

<p>For each patient, the number of miracidia genotyped (n), the estimated effective number of breeders (N_b) and 95% confidence interval (CI) are given. For each patient, the schistosome census size (N_c) is estimated using an N_b/N_c ratio of 0.1 to 0.5.</p><p>Temporal estimates of schistosome burdens of fifteen school aged children enrolled in a mass drug administration program in which they are treated annually.</p

Mean number of schistosome eggs per gram of feces in patients for four years during annual mass praziquantel administration to school aged children.

<p>A. 15 patients deemed “phenotypically susceptible” to schistosomiasis during MDA from which genetic samples were collected. Differences were due to a decrease in prevalence rather than a reduction in egg counts in infected individuals B. 52 randomly sampled children. Note the difference in scale of the Y-axis of both figures as egg burdens were much higher in the phenotypically susceptible group.</p

Mean changes in genetic estimators of schistosome worm burdens collected from humans during four years of an annual mass treatment program.

<p>Lines indicate means. A. number of full sibling families standardized according to sample size. B. effective number of breeders as estimated using the sibling assignment method.</p

Governance and Conservation Effectiveness in Protected Areas and Indigenous and Locally Managed Areas

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-MIncreased conservation action to protect more habitat and species is fueling a vigorous debate about the relative effectiveness of different sorts of protected areas. Here we review the literature that compares the effectiveness of protected areas managed by states and areas managed by Indigenous peoples and/or local communities. We argue that these can be hard comparisons to make. Robust comparative case studies are rare, and the epistemic communities producing them are fractured by language, discipline, and geography. Furthermore the distinction between these different forms of protection on the ground can be blurred. We also have to be careful about the value of this sort of comparison as the consequences of different forms of conservation for people and nonhuman nature are messy and diverse. Measures of effectiveness, moreover, focus on specific dimensions of conservation performance, which can omit other important dimensions. With these caveats, we report on findings observed by multiple study groups focusing on different regions and issues whose reports have been compiled into this article. There is a tendency in the data for community-based or co-managed governance arrangements to produce beneficial outcomes for people and nature. These arrangements are often accompanied by struggles between rural groups and powerful states. Findings are highly context specific and global generalizations have limited value