Search results

This study assessed the effectiveness of malaria classroom corner (MCC), school-based intervention in the promotion of basic malaria awareness and common control practices among children of primary school age.

A quasi-experimental design was employed, involving 206 children of primary 5 and 6 classes from two randomly selected public primary schools in Owerri, South Eastern Nigeria. The MCC was designed and set up in the intervention school (with 103 children) while the control school (with 103 children) was offered malaria health talk. Structured pre-tested questionnaire was used to collect data pre- and post-intervention in both schools. Data was analysed using Statistical Package – Stata version 14.1 (Stata Corp, College Station, TX, USA).

Results show that there was a significant enhancement of basic malaria awareness (p = 0.0003) and common preventive and management practices (p = 0.0202) among children in the intervention primary school compared to those in the control primary school.

The study did not account for actual behaviour change, as its scope was within basic malaria awareness and common control practices.

This approach could enhance awareness and proactiveness of school children towards malaria prevention and overall health consciousness.

This could help in achieving a healthy population of school children with a positive effect on their school performance.

The MCC could provide a simple, participatory and effective approach for the promotion of basic malaria awareness and common control practices among primary school-age children in malaria endemic areas. Such children could, in turn, become malaria conversation drivers and behaviour change agents in their homes and communities, thereby contributing to the malaria elimination efforts.

Presents and discusses the findings of a study undertaken in 1997. The work was intended to inform the development of new initiatives to present drug education to primary schoolchildren aged 8‐12, but which, specifically, would foster parent‐child interaction in relation to drug‐related issues. The study findings indicated that children, parents and teachers are clearly convinced that drug education does have a place in the upper stages of primary school. Parents and teachers supported drug education that took cognisance of the partial knowledge that children possess and was skill based. Results do not indicate approval for a radical programme of parent involvement, but suggest instead an intervention which builds on the existing contractual commitment to consult parents. Two types of resources suggested were a staff development package for teachers giving ideas on how to introduce drug education in the primary school and materials geared to teachers with an existing commitment to drug education.

The school environment affects children's health, emotions and learning. The good design of school buildings makes these places more pleasant and more functional. Children's views are important and need to be more effectively integrated in the school design project, especially after the pandemic as many schools had to re-design their spaces. However, there are challenges for academics, designers and policymakers in determining which methods are appropriate for listening to children's views and ensuring their effective participation. The study aims to evaluate the different ways in which children could get involved in designing schools, and to identify spatial design trends from the perspective of the children.

For this study, qualitative and quantitative research methods were used. Various data collection techniques were drawings, model making and questionnaires. The empirical study was undertaken by 120 children (8–10 years old), who designed three spaces in two Primary Schools in England.

This paper discusses the change in use of spaces for current and future (post-COVID) school design and the need for multi-purpose spaces that can flip form one to another. The findings highlight the importance of involving children in the school design process that could then inform the decision-making processes of architects and designers. The findings would have implications for school design practice, demonstrating how research can be embedded in primary schools to evaluate the quality of indoor and outdoor spaces.

More research focusing on diverse spaces, various age groups and in different primary schools would provide reliable and age-appropriate guideline for future school design. It is recommended to gather children's and teachers' views related to the changes that primary schools in the UK have applied in response to the pandemic since June 2020 to assess the impact of social distancing in various indoor and outdoor spaces.

The study is a response to effective involvement of children in school design process as the main user. By identifying appropriate methods to gather children's views, the gap between academics, designers and policymakers can be bridged, especially for innovative post-COVID design of primary schools with radical changes. The study also highlights children's views for design of outdoor and indoor multi-functional spaces and suggests some post-pandemic design considerations to respond to children's preferences as well as their health and well-being.

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the learning gap between private and public school children in primary school, and ascertain the part of the private–public school learning gap that is due to differences in observables and the part that can be attributed to private school effect.

The paper utilized a household survey data from Ghana that assessed children on numeracy and literacy in both English and local languages. The primary methodology for this study is non-linear Oaxaca decomposition. The study also utilized Welch's t-statistics to test if there are any differences in the private–public school learning gaps across several sub-groups.

Findings from this study show a substantial gain for private school attendance on both numeracy and literacy. The results show that a little over 60% of the total learning gap in numeracy and literacy in English is explained by observable characteristics. However, observable characteristics almost explain all the learning gaps in the reading and writing of local languages. Evidence from the study suggests that the private school effect is homogeneous across several sub-groups. The results reveal years of education, expenditure on extra classes, religion and urbanicity as the most important variables explaining the gap that is caused by differences in observables.

Despite the belief that private school children in Ghana have better learning outcomes, there has not been any study to quantify this learning gap in the country and this study fills this gap. While there is literature on the differences in the learning outcomes between public and private schools, those studies have focused on the differences that are attributable to the private school effect. This article does not only present the differences in the learning outcomes but also shows the proportion that is due to observable characteristics and the part that can be attributed to the private school effect.

Proximity to nature is essential to a child’s development. Well-designed educational environments are crucial to supporting this proximity, particularly in the early years of schooling. The purpose of this paper is to measure children’s experiences of nature within three primary school spaces at various locations in Glasgow, Scotland. The methodology for measuring children’s visual and non-visual sensory experiences is developed to evaluate the connection between naturalness values and spatial environmental qualities across varying “Child–Nature–Distance” ranges.

The approach associates children’s multiple layers of sensory modalities with particular attributes of the spatial environment within primary schools to determine the level of naturalness that children experience, in both internal and external spaces.

The study finds that children’s experiences are significantly influenced by factors relating to urban setting, built environment master planning, architectural features and interior design.

Apart from primary school architecture for children, this methodology could be fully developed to the comprehensive human–nature relationship under the impacts of physical features and societal of other diversified environments in a future study. However, the offering reasonable primary school architecture for a proper children’s multi-sensorial experience with natural environment cannot thoroughly established with a quantitative aspect by the present study only. More qualitative research is recommended to examine the process of altering from “cause” to “perceived” nature of users’ cognitions, attitudes and behaviours within the exposure proximity to nature.

The methodology for measuring visual and non-visual sensorial experiences of nature, and its application to children’s learning and leisure spaces within primary school architecture could offer a tool for assessing current schools, and evaluating future design proposals for new schools.

The authors argue that the applicationof this method can support design decision making for refurbishing schools at the micro level, and in planning urban development involving proposals for new schools at the macro level.

The purpose of this paper is to examine household characteristics and schooling decisions in terms of enrollment and type of school in an urban setting in Nairobi.

The paper uses a cross‐sectional data set collected in 2005. The sample comprises 7,475 primary school‐aged children. A probit model was estimated to show what influences decisions at household level.

Analysis shows that different household and individual attributes motivate different decisions. A considerable proportion (40 per cent) of children from the poorest quintile attends non‐public schools compared to 34 per cent from the richest quintile. The findings reveal that better‐off households are more represented in the free primary education (FPE) programme. The predicted probability of a decision to attend a public school for a primary school‐age child increases as the household wealth increases.

The paper concludes that poorer households are least attending and may be excluded from free public schools.

The paper demystifies the notion that introduction of FPE in developing countries is a pro‐poor policy.

The information use environment (IUE) – the context within which the search activity takes place – is critical to understanding the search process as this will affect how the value of information is determined. The purpose of this paper is to investigate what factors influence search in English primary schools (children aged 4–11) and how information found is subsequently used.

Ten teachers, selected using maximal variation sampling, describe search-related activities within the classroom. The resulting interview data were analysed thematically for the influence of the environment on search and different information uses. The findings were then validated against three classroom observations.

12 categories of information use were identified, and 5 aspects of the environment (the national curriculum, best practice, different skills of children and teachers, keeping children safe, and limited time and resource) combine to influence and shape search in this setting.

Findings support the argument that it is the IUE that is the key influence of search activity. What makes children a distinct user group is linked to the environment within which they use information rather than age, as advocated in previous studies.

The features of search systems and practical guidance for teachers and children should be designed to support information use within the IUE.

As far as the authors are aware, this is the first study to consider the influence of the IUE on how search is enacted within primary schools.

The relationship between the child and his/her physical environment is an area of interaction that includes social, psychological and cultural factors along with the spatial experience, perception and behavior of the child. This study is based on the effects of spatial perception and behavior of the child within the physical environment of primary schools. In this direction, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how spatial and physical characteristics of primary school typologies affect the spatial perception and behavior of the child. Also, the parameters affecting spatial perception and behavior are examined.

The question to be investigated is how the spatial and physical characteristics of the school’s physical environment affect the child’s spatial perception and behavior in primary schools with different typologies. Within this scope, Istanbul’s Kagithane region is selected as a case study. Schools are chosen for their similar spatial and dimensional features and similar socio-economic environment. The methodology of the study consists of a literature review, an observational study carried out to discover the interaction between the child and his/her school building and the analysis of the student’s cognitive maps. These maps were evaluated according to topological, projective, metric and imaginative parameters.

The results show spatial organization and physical characteristics of primary school buildings with a structure that allows for change and transformation, and contributes to the physical and cognitive development of children.

This study will provide an opportunity to develop the design of future primary school buildings that can support the spatial perception and spatial experiences of the children.

The main purpose of this study is to identify the socioeconomic determinants of dropout from primary schools and to give policy suggestions to address the issue.

A total of 600 dropout and enrolled respondents were selected from 60 government primary schools of district Chiniot. School heads and parents of dropout children were taken as samples. The results were obtained by employing the Probit regression model.

Numbers of family members, age of the family head, exchange marriage and poverty status have positive relationship with dropout from primary schools. The findings revealed a higher rate of dropout among girls, which is a major cause of concern.

Education is regarded as a basic human right and a valuable human capital. It is included in Millennium Development Goals to achieve universal primary education and in Sustainable Development Goals as quality education. Underdeveloped countries are facing the problems of high dropout and lack of quality education, especially in Pakistan. These problems need to be addressed to keep pace with developed nations and to meet development goals.

It is recommended that government should create employment opportunities, family planning programs, legislature measures on exchange marriage and child labor. The involvement in co-curricular activities in learning and usage of audio-visual aids in the teaching process can improve the enrollment in the primary schools.

Primary schools provide continuous, intensive contact with large numbers of children starting from a young age, thus providing an appropriate setting for the promotion of healthy eating through food and nutrition education (FNE). This qualitative study explores the views of Australian primary school parents about FNE in primary schools.

In total, 19 parents of primary school children from Victoria participated in semi-structured interviews. Audio recordings were transcribed and underwent thematic analysis using Nvivo. A total of three themes emerged: FNE topics currently taught in primary schools, essential food skills and knowledge for primary school children and the importance of FNE.

Most parents thought that FNE is as important as the core subjects of primary school. Parental support for FNE, which is delivered over a prolonged period, and expanded by hands-on content such as cooking and gardening classes was evident. Parents viewed these classes as likely to improve children's food-related knowledge and healthy eating behaviours. Parents expressed appreciation for schools' emphasis on food sustainability and its alignment with school policies and practices. Parents were keen to see more sustainability included in the curriculum.

These results may have implications for curriculum developers and schools, as the findings can assist the design of food and nutrition curricula for primary schools which can empower children as well as their families to make better food-related decisions.

Australian parents' views of FNE in primary schools have been under examined.