There is a gap in educational research regarding teachers' narratives of teaching in diverse classrooms, especially in East Africa. It is essential to investigate teachers' beliefs and perspectives because these are strong indicators of their planning, instructional decisions, and classroom practices and can also frame their perception of…

Kenya has traditionally adopted a teacher-centred teaching methodology and is now aiming to make improvements by replacing this approach with an education system that is more child focused. The purpose of this study is to examine the Kenyan teaching system. It is an exploratory pilot study, which tries to establish whether governmental directions…

COVID-19-induced school closures generated great interest in tutoring as a strategy to make up for lost learning time. Tutoring is backed by a rigorous body of research, but it is unclear whether it can be delivered effectively remotely. We study the effect of teacher-student phone call interventions in Kenya when schools were closed. Schools…

This study examines the relationship between teacher quality and student achievement in Mathematics among Grade 4 pupils located in 91 urban primary schools and 181 rural primary schools in Kenya. We hypothesise that teacher quality indicators including teacher characteristics, teacher qualification comprising initial teacher education and teacher…

This paper examines common instructional strategies in early grade mathematics interventions through a review of studies in classrooms in low- and middle-income countries. Twenty-four studies met the criteria for inclusion, and analyses reveal four sets of instructional strategies for which there is evidence from multiple contexts. Of the 24…

The on-going implementation of the new curriculum of the new education system in Kenya includes the administration of technology in the classroom. In this study, this was achieved through the use of a gamified app in a local private school in Kenya, a gamified Swahili app. As Swahili is the language that is Kenya's national and one of two official…

The school curriculum encapsulates what a progressive society, based on the pluralist values of liberal democracy, believes its future citizens should know and be able to do. In this respect, the curriculum should serve the immediate and long-term needs of all students. However, COVID-19 has uncovered the inequities that have existed in curriculum…

This paper explores factors to increase the likelihood that the implementation of ABRACADABRA, a technology-based approach to teaching and learning literacy, endures and expands beyond the initial research. Started as a pilot study in 12 classrooms, the implementation spread to more than 500 primary classrooms over six years in five areas of…

The language in education policy in Kenya recommends mother tongue education in primary school learning. The purpose of this study was to explore the development of mother tongues as academic languages at the lower primary section in which the languages are supposed to be used. The exploration was on the functions they play in classroom…

This paper uses sociocultural theories of language learning to investigate how teachers and students navigate between monolingual institutional policies and the multilingual realities encountered in a rural Kenyan fourth-grade classroom. The paper addresses not only how learners' communicative repertoires are deployed to make meaning in a…

Storytelling is a ubiquitous practice dating back to 4000 BC (Abrahamson, 1998). Storytelling, as an effective communication tool and, has helped propagate societies' traditions and culture. Storytelling has also gained popularity in education globally due to its pedagogical advantages, mainly helping students remember information (Morris, 2015).…

The COVID-19 pandemic caused unprecedented disruption to education around the world. There is much to learn from this period, to better understand what happened, to provide support to those affected, and to inform future responses to disruption. This research aimed to contribute to this field by recording teachers' experiences of teaching in the…

In the Republic of Kenya, song is widely used to enhance the whole curriculum in lower primary classes. Song is used especially to aid recall and therefore teachers adapt tunes that children already know, inserting relevant words from the subject at hand. Despite this widespread practice, this form of singing in schools is not recognised by the…

This paper is an exploration of challenges arising in the interplay between a standardised peace education curriculum and a localised post-conflict setting. Drawing on interview data from two Kenyan schools, the paper explores the reception of peace education initiatives implemented in Kenya following the post-election violence of 2007/2008…

Kenya has experienced a positive trajectory in its educational system since independence in 1963 (Oyugi, 2011). However, the area of special education as pertains to teacher preparation continues to be an area that needs further research and exploration (MoHEST, 2012). The purpose of this study was to explore education of students with…