Factors Influencing Academic Performance in Kibera Slum Kindergartens

This report presents a case study on the factors influencing the academic performance of kindergarten children in Kibera slum, Nairobi. It investigates the social and economic conditions, including family structures, parental occupations, and employment rates. The study aims to identify challenges faced by children, such as poverty, malnutrition, and lack of access to resources, and their impact on academic outcomes. The research employs a qualitative approach using a case study method, focusing on a local kindergarten. Data collection methods include questionnaires, interviews with teachers, parents, and children, and observations. The report also explores potential measures to improve academic performance, aiming to address the educational disparities faced by children from disadvantaged backgrounds. The study highlights the limitations of the research and suggests areas for future investigation, emphasizing the need for more comprehensive studies involving multiple schools and extended observation periods.

RUNNING HEAD: INFLUENCES ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN EARLY CHILDHOOD LEARNING
Factors that influence academic performance amongst children from poor
backgrounds: A Case Study of Kibera slum in Nairobi.
Name:
Date:

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Introduction
The future would be uncertain if a country’s population had no children. This makes children a
very important part of a given population since they ensure continuity of the said community.
However, this continuity would be no guarantee if the children are not well taken care of. Thus,
the upbringing of children is very crucial to their performance in the future life as a whole.
Children in the slums are brought up by parents who struggle to even provide these young ones
with their basic needs. It therefore goes without saying that such are the children who are suffer
from health issues such as deficiency diseases and general malnutrition. This explains why this
paper focuses on the children from the slum of Kibera in Nairobi. The paper seeks to investigate
the factors that are affecting the performance of kindergarten children from the slums.
Kibera is a slum located in Nairobi Kenya. The slum is densely populated since it is located
suitable for the casual workers from the surrounding industries. The slum has poor sanitation
facilities. This leads to the children living in these slums to suffer from cholera and other
diseases caused by poor sanitation. There are a few kindergartens in Kibera however, this
schools have poor facilities since the parents are not able to pay enough school fees to sustain
good facilities in the school.
The United Nations explains that all children have a right to basic education. This is further
insisted on by the 2010 constitution. The Kenyan Law has declared it illegal to have children of
school going age at home instead of going to school. This explains why education for the pre
primary and primary school children has been made illegal. The government sends officials all
over their jurisdictions to ensure that parents are sending their children to school.

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However, the children from the slums, despite accessing free education, have a lot of challenges
that prevent them from performing academically. These children mostly come from families
undergoing poverty. Thus, sometimes they go to school without having eaten anything or even
taken any warm drink to keep them warm. Sometimes, these parents hardly have the chance to
see their parents on a daily basis. This is because their parents have to take up more than two
jobs so as to be able to make ends meet. In addition, due to malnutrition, these children are on
and off from school because they are vulnerable to diseases. This makes the children miss a lot
of lessons which are very important for their performance. At the end of it all, we find that these
children graduate from kindergarten without knowing how to read English or speak in fluent
English. This affects them even in the subsequent classes their attend at different levels. If a child
is unable to read, write or express themselves properly, how are they expected to understand
what their teacher is trying to explain to them.
The aim of this research is to find out the factors that are affecting the academic performance of
the children at preprimary levels and ways in which these factors can be curbed to ensure
children from the slums can compete equally with children from the middle class or well to do
families.
Statement of the problem
This study is based on the slum in Kibera for various reasons. First and foremost, the population
growth rate in the slums is extremely higher than other urban areas. This guarantees a strain in
the available resources thus making the young children at the slums a highly disadvantaged
group. Secondly, the children at the slums suffer from inadequate access to health facilities,
sanitation or even resources to enable them to engage in educational facilities. Lastly, this study
acknowledges the fact that the government of Kenya has initiated the vision 2030 plan whereby

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they expect that by 2030 poverty will be minimized and illiteracy eliminated. This study will
come in handy in gauging how far the government is in achieving this dream in regards to the
Kibera slum.
Objectives
(i) The study will seek to identify the social and economic conditions in the slums. This
will include the structure of families in the slums, the occupation of the families’
bread winners, the size of the families and also the employment rates in the families.
(ii) It will then go ahead to investigate the problems that affect the performance of
children at the kindergarten level.
Queries for the purpose of research
i) Which are the social and economic problems faces by children living in the Kibera slum?
ii) How do these social and economic problems affect the performance of kindergarten children
at Kibera slum
iii) Which measures can be taken to improve the performance of Kindergarten children at Kibera
slum?
Research approaches
The approach used is the qualitative approach. The major aims of a qualitative research is to
explain the issue at hand and form enough information that can be used for a quantitative
research. Some of the methods available in qualitative research are as follows:
(i) Case study. This is whereby the research explores on a particular situation or group of
people

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(ii) Grounded theory. This involves the researcher establishing a theory from the
observation and information provided by the participants.
(iii) Ethnography. This is a research carried out in given period of time on a particular
ethnic group.
Research method used
For the purposes of this research, the qualitative research method used is the Case study. The
research will focus on slum dwellers at Kibera slum in Nairobi. Analyzing the characteristics of
this particular group of people will enable the researcher acquire vast information on the factors
affecting academic performance amongst children from the slum.
Participants
A local nursery school” Kikwetu kindergarten” will be used as a sample for the case study. The
teachers and the parents of the children in the kindergarten will enable the researcher to get a
hold to real life experiences straight from the horses’ mouths.
The parents who will participate in the research shall be chosen randomly and only those who are
willing to participate shall be picked to do so. This will apply to the children too. However, the
researcher shall ensure that the children who participate in the research are old enough to
comprehend the questions being conveyed to them.
The teachers in the kindergarten shall also participate fully since they are the ones in the best
position to give first hand information on how the children are affected by the slum life. This is
because they have direct and longest contact with the students.
Methods of data collection

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The school staff members who are going to engage in the research will be given questionnaires
to fill. The parents and children picked for the study will be taken through interviews in which
they will be required to respond to a variety of issues. During the study, they respondents will
provide detailed information regarding the challenges they encounter and the way they related
with their kids and their involvement in their studies. The questionnaire will also seek to learn
about the school’s feeding system and the children’s attendance and why the kids do not attend
school regularly.
Interviews will be conducted to be able to have some of the questions of the researchers
answered. The people who will participate in the interviews will be the parents, teachers and
some of the children. This will be a great advantage for the research because it will enable the
researcher to obtain first-hand information.
Finally, the researcher will take time to observe the activities of the participants. This will enable
the researcher to be involved directly with the on goings at the kindergarten. As a result, the
researcher will feel the impact and see the challenges of slum life on the children in the slums of
Kibera and how it affects their academic performance.
The validity of research tools
Descriptive validity. The researcher will ensure that during observation, a number of assistants
will be involved so as to give different perspectives of what they have observed.
Employing the use of questionnaires, interviews and observations gives validity in that the
weakness of one method can easily be overshadowed by the strengths of the other research. This
is a major advantage as compared to relying on one method of data collection.

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The supervisor reviewed the interview questions to make sure the respondents were capable of
answering them. The research questions and questionnaires were tested with a couple of schools
to determine whether they were clear and understandable.
Limitations
The kindergarten chosen as sample in this particular research is not fully representative of the
entire slum. In a future research, with the availability of enough resources, more schools should
be involved in the research.
The lack of enough time narrowed down the observation method of data collection to only focus
on what could be seen as the school carried out their day to day activities. In a future research
more time should be taken to observe and make a detailed written report on what the researcher
has observed over a given period of time.

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