Financial Literacy and Financial Wellbeing of Public Sector Employees: A Critical Literature Review

There is a great concern from researchers, government, and professional bodies about how consumers, households, students and employees manage their finances. A great number of people from both developed and developing countries are reported to be financially illiterate. Employees today are facing serious challenges in financial decision making that seems to emanate from the changes in financial markets and in social security pension schemes. They have access to financial literacy sessions at their workplaces yet this is not always reflected in the kind of lives they live. This provokes the question ‘does a more financially literate employee enjoy better financial wellbeing than a less literate person?’ The current study therefore seeks to critically review the literature to establish the documented relationship between financial literacy and financial wellbeing and possible intervening and moderating variables. The existing literature gaps are identified and recommended for further research. The results from the literature review indicate that financial literacy and financial wellbeing are defined and measured differently. Additionally, there seem to be a positive relationship between financial literacy and financial wellbeing but this relationship is intervened and moderated by financial decisions and demographic factors respectively

CHALLENGES FACING THE FEEDING PROGRAMMES IN PRE-PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN DIFFICULT CIRCUMSTANCES IN KENYA

Good nutrition is critical in the realization of the potentials in children and in maximizing the benefits derived from educational investment. This article presents the findings from the investigation on the challenges experienced in the feeding programme in pre-primary schools in difficult circumstances in Kenya. The study determined the challenges in the feeding programme in pre-primary schools in Isiolo County, Kenya and also explored the possible strategies that could be put in place to mitigate the challenges. The dependent variable was the feeding programme while the independent variables were the challenges. The target population was all the 200 public pre-primary schools in Isiolo County. Purposive sampling was used to select the schools, headteachers, teachers and parents. Data was collected using questionnaires and observation schedule. Descriptive survey design was deemed appropriate for the study. Qualitative data obtained was transcribed, analyzed thematically and presented descriptively with verbatim quotes. The study established that the feeding programmes were dependent on the government and donor funding. The level of parental participation was low and the food provided was not balanced. More importantly that the major challenges were; shortage of water, food insecurity, inaccessibility, insecurity and harsh climatic conditions It was recommended that the government and all the stakeholders should develop possible measures to deal with finances and cost options.  Article visualizations

Factors Determining Adoption of New Agricultural Technology by Smallholder Farmers in Developing Countries

Agricultural technologies are seen as an important route out of poverty in most of the developing countries. However the rate of adoption of these technologies has remained low in most of these countries. This study aim at shedding some light on the potential factors that influence agricultural technology adoption in developing countries. It does so by reviewing previous studies done on technology adoption. From the study technological, economic, institutional factors and human specific factors are found to be the determinants of agricultural technology adoption. The study recommend the future studies on adoption to widen the range of variables used by including perception of farmers towards new technology. Keywords: Technology, Adoption, smallholde

Gender and Age Analysis on Factors Influencing Output Market Access by Smallholder Farmers in Machakos County, Kenya

Output markets are key prerequisite for enhancing agriculture-based economic growth and increasing rural incomes. However majority of smallholder farmers rarely access output markets. The study determined factors influencing smallholder farmers in Yatta district to access output market based on data collected from 160 households. The data was disaggregated in terms of gender and age and analyzed using SPSS and STATA version 10. Descriptive results revealed a gender and age disparity in accessing output market. Tobit model result indicated that households with access to extension, credit, land, own means of transport, and are members in groups are more likely to access output market.   Nevertheless access to output market was reduced by enterprise diversification, higher education level, household size, age and marital status of household head. To enable farmers to access output market, there is need for policies that promote group membership, improve physical infrastructure, and facilitate access to credit (for example free interest loan) as well as extension services especially to women and youths. Keywords: output market, gender, age-group, disaggregation

Child Survival, Poverty and Policy Options from DHS Surveys in Kenya: 1993-2003

This paper analyses multidimensional aspects of child poverty in Kenya. We carry out poverty and inequality comparisons for child survival and also use the parametric survival model to explain childhood mortality using DHS data. The results of poverty comparisons show that: children with the lowest probability of survival are from households with the lowest level of assets; and poverty orderings for child survival by assets are robust to the choice of the poverty line and to the measure of wellbeing. Inequality analysis suggests that there is less mortality inequality among children facing mortality than children who are better off. The survival model results show that child and maternal characteristics, and household assets are important correlates of childhood mortality. The results further show that health care services are crucial for child survival. Policy simulations suggest that there is potential for making some progress in reducing mortality, but the ERS and MDG targets cannot be achieved.Child survival, multidimensional poverty, inequality, stochastic dominance, childhood mortality, asset index, Kenya

INFLUENCE OF TEACHERS’ TEACHING EXPERIENCE ON TEACHING OF LITERACY SKILLS AMONG GRADE ONE PUPILS IN MOMBASA, KENYA

Early childhood years are crucial in children’s literacy development since the development of language and literacy begins at birth and is a lifelong process. For early childhood education to be a success, teacher experience is imperative for teaching literacy. The teachers’ experience informs the necessary literacy skills for the child which include writing, reading, speaking, listening and drawing. Policies governing basic education in Kenya do emphasize the importance of skilled, experienced teachers in the classroom, including early childhood settings. However, such requirements have not been adhered to and therefore numerous early childhood teachers lack experience in children literacy issues. This study sought to determine how teacher’s experience influences the teaching of literacy skills in primary school in Mbaraki Zone, Mombasa County, Kenya. Descriptive survey design was adopted in the study. The target population for the study comprised of 20 head teachers, 800 Grade one pupils and 40 Grade one teachers of all the twenty primary schools in Mbaraki Zone, Mombasa County, Kenya. Purposive sampling approach was used to obtain the sample for the primary school head teachers and Grade one teachers because they are relatively small. Three learners were sampled randomly from each class that had a participating teacher. The study findings revealed that majority of teachers had more than five years of experience teaching literacy skills. The inferential analysis revealed that the teaching experience had a statistically significant influence on reading (p 0.014), speaking (p 0.021), listening skills (p 0.038) as well as basic skills (p 0.019). The study calls on the ministry of education and the schools to ensure that teachers assigned to grade one should have extensive experience teaching literacy skills to promote teaching of literacy skills in the classes.  Article visualizations

Who Will Silence The Guns? (The Youth As African Solutions To African Problems)

The 50th Anniversary of the Organization of African Union marked a significant time for reflection on the progress made on the continent, as well as persisting challenges. Protracted civil conflicts, proliferation of small arms and light weapons amongst civilian populations and the spread of violent extremism were identified as significant impediments to the progress of the continent. The initiative \u27Silence the Guns by 2020 recognises dialogue-centred conflict prevention and resolution, human centred development and peace as requisite to ensuring and realizing Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want. This paper identifies alternative dispute resolution methods and soft power approaches as key to conflict prevention and management. It also identifies African youth as the African solution to African problems. Using examples from South Sudan, Somalia, Uganda and Kenya, the paper highlights young people\u27s leadership and peacebuilding efforts towards silencing the guns. The paper calls for recognition and engagement of this emerging leadership

Tomato Management Practices and Diseases Occurrence in Mwea West Sub County

Tomato is an important crop in Mwea West Sub County, Kirinyaga County, Kenya. A survey was carried out in the area to investigate tomato management practices, diseases and pests that hinder tomato production. The study endeavoured to establish farmers’ knowledge on fusarium wilt disease and root-knot nematodes and the methods used to control them. Data was collected from two hundred and eighteen randomly selected small holder producers who were equally distributed in the study area. Data collected included tomato management practices, diseases and pests that hinder production. Majority (85.3%) of the respondents were males while a few (14.7%) were female. The respondents (71.6%) indicated that tomato was the most important crop grown for income generation in the area. Most important varieties grown were cultivars, Safari, Kilele F1, Prosta F1 and Rio- Grande. Most important diseases affecting tomato crop were; early blight (Alternaria solani) and late blight (Phytophthora infestans), fungal wilts (Fusarium sp. Verticillium sp. Rhizoctonia sp.) and bacterial wilt (Ralstonia solanacearum). Plant parasitic nematodes and pests (thrips, aphids, spider mites) were also reported in the study area. There was a significant(P<0.05) association between the following variables; type of land owner and major use of land, type of land owner and cropping system, source of agricultural information and whether or not to apply pesticides into the soil. Farmers were quite knowledgeable about tomato farming as they had access to information from various sources; however there are still major gaps in knowledge especially on diseases and pests. Keywords: Tomato, diseases, pests, nematodes, managemen

Mental health and psychological well-being of Kenyan adolescents from Nairobi and the Coast regions in the context of COVID-19

Background Despite the high burden of mental health problems during adolescence and its associated nega- tive consequences, it has remained neglected especially in sub-Saharan Africa. The 2019 novel Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has placed additional stress on adolescent mental health. However, there are few studies docu- menting the burden of mental health problems and even fewer mental health services in the region. In relation to the limited body of knowledge, the present study aims to determine the psychological well-being of adolescents and to assess the risks and associated factors of mental health problems among adolescents in the context of COVID-19 pandemic in Kenya. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional survey in 2022 among adolescents aged 13–19 years living in Nairobi, and the Coast region of Kenya. We utilized standardized psychological assessment tools including the Patient Health Questionnaire, Generalized Anxiety Scale, Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, The World Health Organization- Five Well-Being Index Scale, and the Pandemic Anxiety Scale, to evaluate the psychological wellbeing of the adoles- cents. A linear regression model was used to evaluate the correlates associated with quality of life, pandemic anxiety, and emotional and behavioural problems among adolescents. Subsequently, a logistic regression model was used to assess factors associated with depression and general anxiety disorders. Variables with a p-value \u3c 0.25 in the univari- ate model were included in the multivariable regression model. Results The results are based on 797 participants who met the inclusion criteria. We found the prevalence of depression to be relatively higher among out-of-school adolescents at 36.0% compared to school-going adolescents at 20.6%. Furthermore, out-of-school adolescents had significantly higher anxiety scores when compared to their school-going counterparts (27.7% vs 19.1%) respectively. In-school adolescents had a better quality of life scores, lower pandemic anxiety scores, and lower emotional and behavioral problems scores compared to their out-of-school counterparts. Key risk factors associated with depression include; being out-of-school (OR = 1.96 (95% CI 1.33- 2.88) p-value = 0.001), loneliness (OR = 10.68 (95% CI 4.49–22.86) p-value \u3c 0.001), and living in an unsafe neighborhood (OR = 2.24 (95% CI 1.52–3.29) p-value \u3c 0.001). An older age (OR = 1.16 (95% CI 1.03–1.30) p-value = 0.015), being out-of-school (OR = 1.81 (95% CI 1.19–2.77) p-value = 0.006), and living in an unsafe neighborhood (OR = 2.01 (95% CI 1.33–3.04) p-value = 0.001 were key factors associated with anxiety. Furthermore, key factors positively correlated with quality of life include; high socioeconomic status (ß (Std.Err) = 0.58 (0.14) p-value \u3c 0.001, talking to friends often (ß (Std.Err) = 2.32 (0.53) p-value \u3c 0.001, and being close to parents (ß (Std.Err) = 1.37 (0.62) = 0.026. Conclusion Our findings imply that mental health support services targeting adolescents in the country should be prioritized, especially for those who are out-of-school

A pseudo-likelihood method for estimating misclassification probabilities in competing-risks settings when true event data are partially observed

Outcome misclassification occurs frequently in binary-outcome studies and can result in biased estimation of quantities such as the incidence, prevalence, cause-specific hazards, cumulative incidence functions etc. A number of remedies have been proposed to address the potential misclassification of the outcomes in such data. The majority of these remedies lie in the estimation of misclassification probabilities, which are in turn used to adjust analyses for outcome misclassification. A number of authors advocate using a gold-standard procedure on a sample internal to the study to learn about the extent of the misclassification. With this type of internal validation, the problem of quantifying the misclassification also becomes a missing data problem as, by design, the true outcomes are only ascertained on a subset of the entire study sample. Although, the process of estimating misclassification probabilities appears simple conceptually, the estimation methods proposed so far have several methodological and practical shortcomings. Most methods rely on missing outcome data to be missing completely at random (MCAR), a rather stringent assumption which is unlikely to hold in practice. Some of the existing methods also tend to be computationally-intensive. To address these issues, we propose a computationally-efficient, easy-to-implement, pseudo-likelihood estimator of the misclassification probabilities under a missing at random (MAR) assumption, in studies with an available internal validation sample. We present the estimator through the lens of studies with competing-risks outcomes, though the estimator extends beyond this setting. We describe the consistency and asymptotic distributional properties of the resulting estimator, and derive a closed-form estimator of its variance. The finite-sample performance of this estimator is evaluated via simulations. Using data from a real-world study with competing risks outcomes, we illustrate how the proposed method can be used to estimate misclassification probabilities. We also show how the estimated misclassification probabilities can be used in an external study to adjust for possible misclassification bias when modeling cumulative incidence functions