School effectiveness and academic performance in low-resourced urban settings in Kenya

ABSTRACT

The paper examines the link between school effectiveness and academic performance among primary schools in Nairobi city, Kenya. Data are from 1120 teachers spread in 89 primary schools. Using multivariate regression analysis, the school effectiveness correlates and school academic performance are investigated. Results show existence of a latent variable that strongly explains academic performance even after accounting for covariates. This implies that poor parents in urban poor neighbourhoods choose to enrol their children in schools perceived to be effective; and, investment on strategies that enhance school effectiveness could go a long way to improve school academic performance.

KEYWORDS:

• Effectiveness
• government
• private schools
• academic performance

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the important contribution of the African Population and Health Research Center staff who participated at various stages of the development of this paper including data collection and processing as well as giving valuable comments during the internal review process. We are also grateful to our partners including the Ministry of Education and City Government of Nairobi, Department of Education for providing us with introductory letters to school heads. Finally, we are grateful to the school heads and teachers who participated in this study. The views presented in this paper are only those of the authors and not necessarily shared by those mentioned.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data access

Data used in this paper can be accessed through the African Population and Health Research Center microdata portal http://microdataportal.aphrc.org/index.php/catalog.

Additional information

Funding

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation provided funding for this study under grant number 2008-2098, and we thank them for their continued support.