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.

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.

This chapter is about the modern (Western) educational regime, educational industry paradigm and schooling process, while focussing on statutorily imposed and legally enforced schooling as the main aspect of the hidden curriculum within a globalizing world.

It is about children's productive labour through schooling, whereby children's labour power is consumed, produced and reproduced on behalf of social formations under the capitalist mode of production (CMP).

The claim that a well-educated population is essential for development so that all societies share an interest in having children participate in schooling as much as possible is the central element of the Western education industry paradigm, the global appeal of which is reflected in how compulsory schooling has been embraced almost everywhere in conjunction with being heavily promoted within the ‘international community’ and widely endorsed by researchers, scholars and similar observers.

Contrary to Bowles and Gintis's correspondence principle, the structure of schooling is not an identical to the structure of the workplace in that it entails compulsion, whereby schooling is as efficient and effective as possible in meeting the needs of the CMP.

The CMP benefits from the state having shifted confinement as a mechanism to force people to work onto schooling; or, from compulsory social enclosure, whereby schools increasingly resemble military and prison systems.

Compulsory social enclosure helps to ensure that children's productive capacity – or labour power – is enhanced to the benefit of the CMP, this being the major factor in accounting for its appeal and advance on the world stage, globally.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the level of intrinsic motivation of primary-school-age children alongside the factors that influence these levels when learning English.

This goal was reached through a study that was conducted in four educational establishments of Tyumen. The study benefits from qualitative and quantitative methods. The qualitative part consists of an experiment in a group setting. Two groups of students were learning under two different programmes and the teachers were making records of student outcomes, interest in learning and motivation. The findings demonstrate that the level of motivation/interest is higher when interactive techniques (appropriate for the age of students) are in use. The quantitative part involved a survey to identify intrinsic motivations by completing which the students revealed high and medium levels of motivation/interest to learn.

The findings can be used when updating or re-designing education programmes and when creating new methods for teaching English in Russian educational establishments.

Giving the schoolchildren a motivation to learn is, without any exaggeration, one of the central problems in modern school. Teaching English as a foreign language to students of younger age (schoolchildren) requires a special approach due to special psychological and mental characteristics that these students have. The scholars have established that learning of foreign languages happens best at a very young age. However, without proper methods of teaching, teachers will not be able to reach the learning objectives, which they were attempting to reach. The reason for this effect is simple. The way the subject is taught is expected to spark interest but with the lack of interest in the subject, students will not feel sufficiently motivated to actually learn something. Hence, motivation is essential for learning any foreign language. In the home setting, motivation to learn, as well as a positive learning environment, is the responsibility of parents.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the determinants of malnutrition of primary school‐age (five to ten years) children in urban and slum areas. The ultimate objective is to frame policy proposals for children's nutritional welfare.

In this empirical study, logit model is applied to 882 observations of primary data. The composite index of anthropometric failure (CIAF) is constructed to use an indicator of malnutrition.

The probability for anthropometric failure increases by age, birth‐order, female sex and activity of the child (child labor or home‐care activity) other than schooling. The parents' education, specifically mothers' education, can play an important role for child's nutritional status. Malnutrition is positively related with congestion in the household (number of household members per room), while provision of electricity, safe drinking water and underground drainage turns out to be negatively affecting children's malnutrition. The children living in slums are more likely to experience anthropometric failure.

From the policy perspective awareness about gender equity of child, adult education, growth of household income specifically of slum areas and improvement in living conditions (through public health works program) may contribute to enhance children's nutritional status.

The slums need targeted policy for children welfare regarding their nutrition in the form of provision of public utilities and income support.

From the methodological point of view, CIAF has been estimated as a measure of malnutrition. The findings of study may support academicians, policy makers and social activists for human development programs.

This study aims to determine the association between dietary quality and growth of the aboriginal primary school children in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia.

The cross-sectional study was carried out in Negeri Sembilan. A total of 194 school-aged aboriginal children participated in the study. The dietary intake and socioeconomic status data were collected from the parents using an interviewer-administrated structured questionnaire comprised of sociodemographic questions and three days of dietary recall. The Malaysian Healthy Eating Index was used to determine the diet quality of children. WHO Anthro Plus software was used to determine the z-score of weight-for-age (WAZ), height-for-age (HAZ) and body mass index (BMI)-for-age (BAZ).

Among all children, 15, 9 and 5% of them were stunted, underweight and thin, respectively. On the other hand, 16 and 12% of the children were overweight and obese, respectively. The aboriginal children were at risk of poor diet quality (37.19 ± 12.07) and had high dietary protein and fat intake than national recommended nutrient intake. The children achieved micronutrients intake, except for calcium. There was no significant association between total diet quality scores with growth indices among the aboriginal children. There is significant negative correlation between dietary vitamin A intake with HAZ (r = −0.168, p < 0.05) and WAZ (r = −0.219, p < 0.05) z-score of the aboriginal children.

Although there was a reduction in under-nutrition among the aborigines, an increasing over-nutrition status among aborigines should be considered, especially in terms of poor dietary quality and intake.

The purpose of this paper is to explore some of the ethical and practical challenges of working with primary school-aged children to conduct qualitative service evaluations regarding sensitive safeguarding topics.

The paper centres on the author’s learnings from conducting school-based, task-assisted focus groups with 5–11 year olds. The reflections are drawn from notes made during fieldwork, debrief discussions with evaluation colleagues and wider team debates. This was a consultative participatory evaluation and the findings are situated within the wider literature around rights-based approaches to research.

Using multi-method and creative approaches can facilitate young children to assent and dissent from service evaluation in a school setting. However, the challenges of helping children understand confidentiality are highlighted, as is the challenge for researchers in recognising and responding in situ to disclosures. Using suitable and creative activities, this evaluation demonstrates that primary school children can contribute meaningful data to assist with service development. However, the approach to collecting these data from the youngest children needs careful consideration.

Researchers may need to adopt full participatory methods to better help children understand the confidentiality bounds of research and to form views on the subject matter. More discussion is needed in the wider safeguarding research literature to show how researchers have navigated the challenges of handling disclosures.

This paper contributes to the literature by providing examples of how to overcome issues of children’s participation, consent and protection in service evaluation focussed on a sensitive topic.

Stigma around mental health problems is known to emerge in middle childhood and persist into adulthood, yet almost nothing is known about the role of parents in this process. This paper aims to develop a model of parental communication to primary school-aged children around mental health and ill-health, to increase understanding about how stigma develops.

Semi-structured interviews were performed with ten UK-based parents of children aged 7-11 years. Analysis followed an exploratory grounded theory approach, incorporating quality assurance checks.

Parents’ communications are governed by the extent to which they view a particular issue as related to “Them” (mental ill-health) or to “Us” (mental health). In contrast to communication about “Us”, parental communication about mental “illness” is characterized by avoidance and contradiction, and driven by largely unconscious processes of taboo and stigma.

This study was the first to explore parents’ communications to their 7-11 year old children about mental health and mental illness, and proposes a preliminary theoretical model that may offer insight into the development of stigma in childhood and the intergenerational transmission of stigmatized attitudes.

Involvement of parents/carers may increase effectiveness of primary school-based alcohol-misuse prevention projects through strengthening family-based protective factors, but rates of parental engagement are typically low. This paper reports findings from an exploratory trial of a school-based prevention intervention – Kids, Adults Together (KAT), based on the Social Development Model, which aimed to promote pro-social family communication in order to prevent alcohol misuse, and incorporated strategies to engage parents/carers. The purpose of this paper is to assess the feasibility and value of conducting an effectiveness trial of KAT.

The study was a parallel-group cluster randomised exploratory trial with an embedded process evaluation. The study took place in south Wales, UK, and involved nine primary schools, 367 pupils in Years 5/6 (aged 9-11 years) and their parents/carers and teachers. Questionnaires were completed by pupils at baseline and four month follow-up, and by parents at six month follow-up.

Overall KAT was delivered with good fidelity, but two of five intervention schools withdrew from the study without completing implementation. In total, 50 per cent of eligible parents participated in the intervention, and KAT had good acceptability among pupils, parents and teachers. However, a number of “progression to effectiveness trial” criteria were not met. Intermediate outcomes on family communication (hypothesised to prevent alcohol misuse) showed insufficient evidence of an intervention effect. Difficulties were encountered in identifying age appropriate outcome measures for primary school-age children, particularly in relation to family communication processes. The study was unable to find comprehensive methodological guidance on exploratory trials.

It would not be appropriate to conduct an effectiveness trial as key progression criteria relating to intervention and trial feasibility were not met. There is a need for new measures of family communication which are suitable for primary school-age children, and more guidance on the design and conduct of exploratory/feasibility trials.

KAT achieved high rates of parental involvement, and its theoretical framework and processes could be adapted by other interventions which experience difficulties with recruitment of parents/carers.

Although global factors undeniably play a role in the adoption of Education for All (EFA) goals in any given country, it would seem that a great majority of studies on EFA tend to overlook the significance of local dynamics. The meaning of schooling is socially constructed, regardless of how the global consensus may wish to structuralize it. The main concern of this chapter, therefore, is to closely analyze the processes by which EFA goals are adopted by the Ethiopian government and how they are implemented at the central and local levels of the government structure. The government's dependence on foreign assistance contributes to the way in which Ethiopian education policy converges with EFA. However, EFA goals are predominantly the concern of policy makers at the international and central government levels, while, over the course of implementation, the administrative judgment of street-level officials inevitably narrows the actual focus of policy. Also, the choices parents make concerning their children's education are not always purely motivated by educational concerns, but are also contingent on economic and/or social factors as well. Ethiopia has achieved a rapid increase in enrolment rates, a development regarded as a sign of true governmental commitment to succeeding in EFA. However, as the author demonstrates in this chapter, a variety of social and systematic factors coalesced to bring about the increase in enrolment, with governmental commitment numbering as just one.