International Journal of Innovative Research and Development

Abstract

Treating water at the household level has been shown to be one of the most effective and cost-effective means of preventing water-borne disease. Promoting household water treatment and safe storage (HWTS) ensures vulnerable populations to take charge of their own water security by providing them with the knowledge and tools required to treat their drinking water.

 The aim of the study was to assess household water quality management practices among residents and households of Kaptimbor slum in Kabarnet town. The specific objectives were; to establish community’s perspective and initiative towards improving water quality and to determine if there is biological contamination of household water. Interviews and administered questionnaires were used to collect data needed for the study. On socio-demographic characteristics of residents’ level of education, occupation, income, marital status, number of children, age range of children, and household water quality management practices: training on water safety practices, place of training, major source of drinking water for children, practices for water safety and reasons for not practicing water safety.  Water samples were collected and analysed for biological contamination. Data was coded and entered using SPSS. A correlation analysis was done between socio-demographic lifestyle behaviours, demographic lifestyle behaviors and community perspective directly affecting quality management practice and relationship and water quality management practice and also relationship between faecal contamination of water and household water quality management practices. Data were analysed and presented in tables, graphs and pie charts.  A total of 112 households participated in the study. 97.2% of the respondents were married, 58.6% had attained primary education while 51% indicated they were unemployed, 85.4% earned an income of less than USD 10 a month, 52% had less than five children. 65.2% had undergone some form of training on water safety. 42.7% of households practiced boiling, 8.1% chemical treatment, 0.8 % hand washing before handling drinking water.  Most households (90.7% in the slum used stored water collected from communal piped water points. The samples collected from the communal water points tested negative for coliform bacteria. At the household level, 11.2% samples of water had coliform bacteria contamination above 10 counts/100ml which is not fit for drinking while 18% of water samples tested positive for E. coli. There was a strong positive correlation between socio-demographic lifestyle behaviours and household water quality management practices variables whereby Pearson’s r was 0.778. There was a moderately strong positive and significant correlation between Community’s perspective and Household water quality management practices (r=0.601, p= 0.000).

The study concluded that the households in Kaptimbor with children aged under six years (pre-school going and below) had parents/guardians who were married, had primary level of education, were either unemployed or in business with an income of less than USD 10. Majority of parents/guardians had received training on water safety but few practiced water treatments. There was post-source contamination of water.

It was recommended that Parents/guardians should embrace initiatives of promoting household water treatment and safe storage in collaboration with the community. Health education should be provided to the community on the importance of treating water at point of use.

Keywords

Full Text

Abstract

The process of acquiring a doctoral degree is a daunting task to many Kenyan students. Many students take a considerably long time to complete their theses or fail to complete them altogether. The study investigated how factors relating to the supervision process influence completion rates for doctoral studies in Education in Kenya’s public universities. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. It targeted all students registered for various doctoral degree programmes in Education, lecturers and heads of departments in public universities in Kenya. The participants comprised 115(66.09%) lecturers/heads of departments and 388(67.29%) doctoral candidates. Questionnaires, document analysis and interviews were used to collect data. Validity of the research instruments was based on construct and content validity. The reliability of the research instruments was determined by a test-retest method on a pilot study sample. Pearson’s Product Co-efficiency (r) was used to compare the two response categories from the pilot study. The collected data was coded, analysed and presented using descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages and the results were presented in form of tables and charts. The study established that about 50% of the teaching staff in public universities in Kenya are tutorial fellows, who by level of their academic qualifications, should not be supervising thesis writing process. This finding was attributed to the fact that Kenya’s public universities lack enough qualified lecturers to supervise students’ research work. Due to the foregoing challenges, majority of the doctoral students fail to complete their thesis writing process within the time stipulated by the universities. The universities’ policy is that a doctoral degree course should take a minimum of three years and a maximum of five. The study found that the average time to degree between 2001 and 2008 was about nine years. However, this duration has gradually reduced to the current six and half years. Completion rates oscillate between 50% and 70%, with female candidates generally having slightly higher completion rates than their male counterparts. Completion rates for candidates registered from 2009 to date are still far below 50%. There was no significant difference in time to degree between male and female candidates.

Keywords

Full Text