Chief Editor: Prof. J. W. Khamasi, EBS, Dedan Kimathi University of Technology,
Assistant Editor: Dr. H. Kiplagat, University of Eldoret
The Journal of African Studies in Educational Management and Leadership (JASEML) Volume 11 presents four articles covering a number of educational issues ranging from curriculum changes in Kenya, completion rate in universities, academic performance in secondary schools and finally, leadership styles of school principals.
Kenya is in the process of reforming the school curriculum from Kindergarten to Grade 12 under Basic Education Curriculum Framework (BECF) (KICD, 2017). The BECF includes changes in the structure of education system from 8 years of primary education, 4 years of secondary and 4 years of university education (8-4-4); to 2 years in Pre-primary and 3 years of Lower Primary Education; 3 years in Upper Primary, 3 years in Junior Secondary School; and 3 years in Senior School; after which the students will join post-secondary training institutions including universities. The 8-4-4 system was institutionalized in the early 1990s and has shaped a whole generation of Kenyans. The papers presented here touch on issues that key stakeholders in the education sector need to pay attention so as to prepare to participate in the curriculum reforms as educators, teacher educators, employers and policy makers; and as they prepare to manage the envisioned changes and politics in the sector.
The first paper is situated in the context of curricula change and particularly as it affects Home Science Education. In the paper, Catherine Sempele discusses challenges of the home science curriculum offered in Primary Teacher Training Colleges (PTTC) and suggests ways in which the challenges could be managed in order to improve the future of Home Science Education within the new curriculum framework.
Universities in Kenya receive government sponsored students through the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS). When a student is placed in whichever University, they are free to join as per the set date or defer to a later date. For continuing students, they are free to take academic leave as they progress from year one to their final year. In the second paper, Joyce Lugulu and Joseph Katwa discuss the “Impact of Deferments of Study by Undergraduate Students in Public Universities in Kenya”.
In Chapter Three, Nicodemus Ojuma Anyang and John Mugun Boit invite the readers to interrogate the practice of schooling and more so secondary school education and analyze the value-added to students’ entry marks by the time they graduate from high school instead of focusing on the individual mean score. They argue that by so doing, stakeholders will understand the need to hold teachers accountable to the whole process of teaching and learning in secondary schools. In that regard, they propose that school system should pay more attention to whether the students have acquired the expected skills and competencies or not.
In chapter four, Paul Ngunyi and Michael Ndurumo’s paper reports on a research that was designed to explore the impact of transformational leadership on academic performance of secondary school students in one county in Central Kenya. Seventeen (17) school principals and 57 teachers participated in the study; by filling multifactor leadership questionnaire. The results reviewed that the principals’ inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, idealized influence and individual considerations had a positive impact on the academic performance of students. The authors offer several recommendations for the Teachers Service Commission to consider. In particular, the focus should be in the selection and training of school principals.
Reference
Republic of Kenya (2017). Basic Education Curriculum Framework, Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development, Nairobi.