The issue of insecurity and safety of educational institutions has aroused scholarly interest globally, regionally and in Kenya recently. This study was aimed at establishing both institutional and individual determinants of secondary schools management of safety and security in public secondary schools in Mandera County. The study addressed the following objectives: establish the relationship between principals’ leadership styles and management of safety and security in public secondary schools, establish the relationship between the level of BOM general competency and management of safety and security in public secondary schools, determine the relationship between school security policies and management of safety and security in public secondary school and determine the extent to which school infrastructure relates to safety and security management in public secondary schools in Mandera County. Correlational study design was used as the frame work that anchored the study. The survey targeted a population of 424 teachers, 46 principals, 460 BOM members and 13,387 students in Mandera County which makes a total population of 14,317. The study used stratified simple random sampling to proportionately select respondents involved in the study. The sample size was 201 teachers, 40 principals, 210 BOM members and 373 students and thus narrowing the sample size to 824 respondents. Questionnaires for teachers, semi- structured interview guides for principals and BOM members and focus groups discussions for students were adopted as instruments of collecting data. Two schools located in the area of study and that have similar features with the final sample were used to pre-test the instruments. Content validity was determined using expert judgment. Instrument reliability was established using Cronbach alpha technique. Thematic analysis was used to analyze qualitative data while quantitative data was analyzed using frequencies, means and regression analysis. Results from this research show that for every additional unit in secondary school principals’ leadership styles, there was 29.7% increase in management of security; every additional unit in board of management competency, there was 15.5% decrease in management of security and every additional unit in adherence to security policies, there was 44.7% increase in security management; and every additional unit in the development of infrastructure in the schools, there was 56.1% increase in security management in high schools in Mandera County. In conclusion, schools in Mandera should endeavour to implement Ministry of Education guidelines on security and safety measures. The major significance of the research is that it may assist secondary school principals in examining issues of school security and subsequently guide the principals on how to apply leadership styles that best help in the management of security in public secondary schools and come up with suitable mitigation measures. The study recommended that school leadership need to adopt the correct management strategies and involve the community within which the school is situated in matters of student security and safety.

This is a graphonological study of the Gĩkũyũ graphemic structure. The study sought to examine the extent to which the criteria for designing an orthography is observed, account for the graphemic structure of Gĩkũyũ using the Correspondence Theory, a sub-theory of Optimality Theory (OT), and evaluate the consequences of underrepresentation and overrepresentation of the orthography criteria on speakers and readers of Gĩkũyũ. Data was generated by respondents drawn from the five dialects of Gĩkũyũ, namely Gĩcũgũ, Mathĩra, Ndia, Northern Gĩkũyũ and Southern Gĩkũyũ. Each dialect produced six respondents, three males and three females, thus, a total of thirty respondents. They wrote translations of selected items from English to Gĩkũyũ to provide graphemic data. They then read their translations thus providing phonemic data. The phonemes and graphemes were pitted against the Principles of Orthography that underlie each criterion used in designing an orthography. To account for the graphemic structure, the data were analysed against OT constraints which were derived from the aforementioned principles. The findings include: the identification of hitherto unidentified vocalic concatenations; discovery of OT constraints that had not been used before; and, the establishment of Gĩkũyũ orthography as a deep orthography. The study recommends a phonetic study to establish the vowel space of Gĩkũyũ vowels, a revision of the Gĩkũyũ graphemic inventory so as to include the additional graphemes examined in this research, and, lastly, similar studies on Kenyan Bantu languages with a view of harmonizing their orthographies.

This work is a response to a call by various scholars on the native speakers of African languages to undertake researches aimed at preserving, developing and popularising the African languages. The main aim of the study was to understand the complexity of Gĩkũyũ clauses. Specifically, within the frame of Functional Grammar Theory, the study focused on the functional-semantic relations in Gĩkũyũ clause complexes, the different relation markers in the clauses and the analysis of the clause complexes in the three metafunctions identified by the theory. Therefore, the specific objectives of the study were: to establish the functional-semantic relations in Gĩkũyũ clause complexes; to categorize the relation markers in the Gĩkũyũ clause complexes; and, to analyze the Gĩkũyũ clause complexes metafunctionally. Guided by these objectives, the study adopted a descriptive research design to enable a detailed description of its data and the emerging patterns from data analysis. The data, Gĩkũyũ clause complexes, was sampled purposively from both written and spoken sources. The written sources were selected fictional and non-fictional Gĩkũyũ texts while the spoken sources were two talk shows: one from a Gĩkũyũ television station and the other from a Gĩkũyũ radio station. Introspection was also employed to fill gaps in the data collected from the written and the spoken sources. A total of a hundred and seventy eight (178) Gĩkũyũ clause complexes were sampled. The data revealed that Gĩkũyũ clause complexes manifest functional-semantic relations in the two broad logico-semantic relations of expansion and projection, the categories identified by Halliday and Matthiessen. The relations observed under expansion were elaboration, extension and enhancement while both locution and idea were observed under projection. The relations were found to be realised both paratactically and hypotactically, each means employing different relation markers. Metafunctional analyses of the data revealed that Gĩkũyũ clause complexes simultaneously serve the three basic functions of language when in use: textual, interpersonal and experiential. This is because it proved possible to analyse the complexes in the thematic, mood and transitivity structures, which respectively carry the three functions. The analyses further revealed some unique characteristics of the Gĩkũyũ clause that Functional Grammar does not account for. These features, which include redundancy of constituents in the metafunctional structures, are mainly due to the agglutinative nature of Gĩkũyũ. The findings have implifications in the field of linguistics, more specifically to studies on African languages, as it bridges a linguistic gap on clause complexity in Gĩkũyũ. The findings would also go a long way in increasing proficiency in Gĩkũyũ, hence significanct to the users of the language. The study recommends, among other things, that the users of Gĩkũyũ familiarise themselves with the findings to improve their proficiency in the language and that institutions teaching African languages and the developers of Gĩkũyũ curriculum adopt the findings. Further, it calls for more related studies, such as phonological study on the Gĩkũyũ clause complexes and studies on complexes at the levels below and above the clause.

The study investigated bursary scheme and its influence on participation in educational activities by learners from poor households in Homa Bay County, Kenya. Despite the government’s systematic release of bursary funds to constituencies, there were questions on whether the bursary scheme facilitated participation of needy learners in secondary school education. Homa Bay County had climatic conditions unfavourable for agriculture, was dominated by low rewarding economic activities like small scale fishing and the HIV and AIDS scourge had impoverished the residents of the county, necessitating bursary intervention. The objectives of the study were: to establish the bursary application procedure and disbursement criteria in Homa Bay County, to find out the awareness creation mechanisms on existence of bursary in Homa Bay County, to establish the extent to which needy learners benefitted from the bursary scheme in Homa Bay County, to determine the extent of fairness in the distribution of secondary school bursary awards in Homa Bay County and to identify the challenges facing the secondary education bursary scheme in Homa Bay County. The study was guided by the Classical Liberal Theory by Sherman and Wood that stressed on each child being given opportunity to develop their naturally given capacities and talents without barriers so as to promote the individual’s socio-economic mobility. The study employed a descriptive survey design. Purposive sampling was used to pick 16 schools out of 51 for the study. 900 respondents participated in the study. A pilot study was done to determine the feasibility of the study and test-retest method was used to assess reliability of instruments. The first and second test scores were correlated using Pearson Correlation Coefficient which gave a result r=0.98 indicating a strong correlation and therefore a reliable instrument. Content validity of instruments was done by the researcher and other professionals. . Questionnaires, interview schedules, focused group discussions and document analysis were used to collect data. Qualitative and quantitative data collection methods were employed. Analysis was done using IBM SPSS Statistics 25.0 and results presented in frequency distribution tables, line charts and bar charts. Information obtained through emergent themes was analyzed qualitatively while the rest were subjected to quantitative analysis. The greatest success of the bursary scheme was found out to be subsidized school fees while the greatest challenge was political manipulation. The study revealed that fairness was not adequately observed in the distribution of secondary school bursary awards. Suggested recommendations included people of high integrity be put in CBC, bursary be given only to needy students, sufficient amounts be awarded, transparency and accountability be enhanced, bursary policies be followed, disbursement be done in time, CBC to get correct data on needy students from schools and government to enhance monitoring of the disbursement process.

In Kenyatta University, a significant number of undergraduate students are discontinued from their studies every year for failing to meet academic requirements. This may reverse the gains made by the university in its role in human and social capital development. Failure to meet academic requirements among university students is a form of self-handicapping which has not extensively been researched on in Kenya and this may limit the support given to students. This study, therefore, examined how the Big Five personality traits and achievement goal orientations predict academic self-handicapping among university students. The study was anchored on self-worth and Big Five personality theories. A convergent parallel mixed method research design was used. The study targeted all third year undergraduate students in the 2019/2020 academic year. Purposive, stratified, and simple random sampling techniques were used. The study involved 391 undergraduate students. Questionnaires and an interview schedule were used for data collection. A pilot study involving 30 students established the reliability and validity of the research instruments. Data were analyzed using SPSS (v.24). The results revealed significant positive correlations between three of the Big Five personality traits and academic handicapping: Neuroticism (r = .41, p <.05), openness to experience (r = .33, p <.05) and conscientiousness (r = .20, p < .05). Agreeableness had a significant negative correlation with academic self-handicapping (r = -.11, p <.05). Only extraversion had a non-significant correlation with academic self-handicapping (r = .05, p >.05). In addition, only two out of the four academic goal orientations had significant correlations with academic handicapping: mastery approach (r = -.13, p <.05), and performance avoidance (r =.15, p <.05). Non-significant correlations were reported for mastery avoidance (r =.09, p > .05) and performance approach (r =.04, p > .05). A stepwise regression revealed that the Big Five personality traits and achievement goal orientation accounted for 27% of variation in undergraduate students’ academic self-handicapping. When self-esteem was added in the model, it significantly accounted for a 4 % change in the variation of students’ academic self-handicapping (ΔR2 = .04, ΔF (9, 306) =1.92, p = .04). The prediction model was statistically significant (F (19, 306) = 7.12, p < .05, Adjusted R2 = .26). Thus efforts to understand how the Big Five personality traits and achievement goal orientation predict academic self-handicapping should pay attention to self-esteem as a moderator. The study recommends that interventions aimed at guiding undergraduate students to reduce neuroticism, openness to experience and performance avoidance orientation may be beneficial in efforts to reduce academic self-handicapping tendencies. Educational practices that foster mastery goals and enhance students’ self-esteem may help in reducing self-handicapping among university students.

This study was carried out to establish the attitudes, views and experiences of key education stakeholders towards the interface of (RR) and English with respect to performance in English at UCE, the final examination at the lower secondary school level. It was carried out in Kabale District, western Uganda. The key stakeholders in this study included: education officers, head teachers, classroom teachers and the students. The study adopted a mixed approach of qualitative and quantitative design. It had the following objectives: to establish the attitudes of education officers on the influence of RR on learners performance in English at UCE, to investigate the views of the teachers on their experience regarding the influence of RR on learners performance in English at UCE, to explore the thoughts of learners regarding the influence of RR on performance in English at UCE as well as to evaluate he learners performance in English at UCE in view of the interface between RR and English. The study was also guided by the Cross-linguistic Theory by Mitchel and Myles (2004) which emphasises the concept of transfer in language learning as well as Cummins‟ (1984) Hypothesis which emphasises language interdependence. Five major forms of data collection were used: interviews for education officers and head teachers, questionnaires for classroom teachers, FGDs for students, document analysis for UCE results as well as getting RR and non-RR students to do an English test for comparison of performance. The findings from the respondents, from the UCE records and those from the test have been presented and discussed in chapters four and five. In general terms, the study established that majority of the respondents: the education officers, the head teachers, the classroom teachers and the students held a positive attitude towards the influence of RR on performance English at UCE. This view was supported by the finding that students studying RR performed better in the English test administered in this study as well as in the UCE results for the three successive years: 2015, 2016 and 2017. It is, therefore, recommended that RR in particular and LLs in general should continue being taught in Ugandan secondary schools.

Language phonotactics and morphotactics are very significant in determining linguistic borrowing. Despite this significance, fewer studies have explored this interplay. This study undertook a morphophonological analysis of borrowed segments in Ekegusii. To achieve this, the study described the phonological adaptations, phonological processes that shape the patterns of the borrowed segments in Ekegusii, established both the phonotactics and morphotactics of the Ekegusii language that constrain borrowing and ascertained the extent to which Optimality Theory accounts for borrowing in Ekegusii. The Optimality Theory as proposed by Prince and Smolensky (1993 and 2004) and Kager (1999) as well as Generalized Alignment Theory by McCarthy and Prince (1993a) were used in the study. A descriptive linguistic fieldwork design guided this study. This study targeted proficient adult Ekegusii speakers both male and female who were neither too young nor too old, had all their own teeth and did not have any speech disorders. To arrive at the appropriate study sample, purposive sampling was used and it was carried out in two stages. First, the researcher sampled two hundred words from Ekegusii dictionary, then supplemented from introspection. Secondly, the researcher sampled three proficient adult Ekegusii speaker respondents (two males and one female) who were interviewed to overtly realize the sound patterns in the Ekegusii borrowing processes. Data collection instruments included a wordlist which was subjected to the respondents through interviews which were recorded to yield spoken data. Data analysis revealed that loanwords in Ekegusii undergo both phonological and morphological adaptations. First, on phonological adaptations the findings revealed that English vowels tend to be substituted with those in Ekegusii which they have shared features in terms of horizontal and vertical tongue position, tenseness as well as shape of the lips. On consonantal segments, data showed that the sounds that were adapted shared at least the major-class features, laryngeal, manner and place features with those they replaced. In addition, segments that are unmarked and preferred cross linguistically were adapted over the marked ones. OT constraints accounted for all the phonological and morphological processes whereby markedness constraints dominated the faithfulness constraints. Phonotactics of Ekegusii language that constrain borrowing were revealed at two levels: segmental and syllabic. On the morphological adaptations, it was established that borrowed segments are mapped to different noun classes with the prefix marker being the overriding factor. It is expected that this study will contribute to the existing literature on Bantu languages in relation to borrowing within the framework of Optimality Theory.

This thesis is a linguistic study of KPP names, KPP symbols, KPP colours and KPP slogans. It establishes that linguistic resources are used by political operators in design of the KPP tools. This is achieved by deliberately manipulating language at the phonological, morphological, lexical, syntactic, semantic, sociolinguistic and textual levels. These linguistic manipulations realise KPP mixed code names, sense relations, associative meanings, political discourses, abbreviations manipulations etc. Given its broad nature, this study is anchored on several theories including critical discourse analysis as it applies to political discourse, the semantic field theory, the symbolic interaction theory, the semiotics theory, the X-bar theory, the revised B and K universal theory and Whorfian linguistics relatively theory. Finally, the study employed a mixed methods approach which entails both qualitative and quantitative data obtained from the non-probability samples. Interviews, observation and archival (documentary reviews) methods are applied as tools for data collection. Data analysis is done using the MS-Excel 2010, matrix language frame (MLF), SPSS, and content analysis. This research finds a clear phonological, lexical, syntactic, sociolinguistic-code mix- and semantic manipulation of language in the crafting, designing, choosing and deployment of KPP names, symbols, slogans and colours thus necessitating an arrival at valid and appropriate findings and conclusions upon which research recommendations and generalisations are made.

This study involved a genre analysis of sampled radio and TV argumentative talk shows in Kenya. The research objectives were: to describe the generic structure of the talk shows; to explore the particular aspects that characterize argument on the talk shows; to investigated the question typology that sets apart this talk show genre, and finally to establish the communicative purposes of the discrete phase of the talk shows in light of the the generic features established. The study used a descriptive research design whereby purposive sampling was used to identify the talk shows that contained the relevant issues. A multistage sampling procedure was used to arrive at a sample size of 7 hours, 30 minutes of conversational data that was subjected to analysis. Data was collected through tape recording of the talk shows. The data was transcribed using standard orthography to allow for identification of the required language features. The aspects of argument and the question types were coded and analyzed using SPSS version 17 to generate tables on the frequencies of their occurrence. This facilitated comparison and discussion of the emerging patterns of the features across the sampled talk shows. Data analysis was guided by two theories: The first was Genre Analysis that views a genre as a class of communicative events with a common structure, content and shared communicative functions. The second wass Conversation Analysis was used to analyze sequential as well as overall organization of the talk shows. From the analysis, it was established that the sampled argumentative radio and TV talk shows constitute a genre for exhibiting a common structure; recurring aspects of argument, common question types and shared communicative goal. This study was motivated by the fact that argumentative talk shows have provided an arena in which journalists solicit statements of public policy, hold politicians accountable for their actions, all under the immediate scrutiny of the citizenry. The findings may therefore provide useful insights to the producers and hosts of these programmes on the various features of language that may be used in conducting more engaging programmes; thus, informing the public more.

The purpose of this study was to explore the lived experiences of COVID-19 Survivors in Seeta Mukono district. The study was guided by three objectives namely to find out the key challenges faced by COVID-19 survivors, to explore the lived experiences of COVID-19 Survivors as well as to find out the coping mechanisms adopted by COVID-19 survivors and the community. The study was purely qualitative in nature and employed a purposive sampling strategy to identify the respondents. The sample size of the study was relatively small with a total number of ten primary respondents and two key informants. Data was collected through in-depth interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis method. The findings of the study were presented in narrative form so as to enhance quicker and better understanding of the lived experiences of COVID-19 survivors. The findings of the study highlighted a number of challenges faced by COVID-19 survivors and these among others include domestic violence, food scarcity, and restriction on movement of persons among others. The study further highlighted that the participants adopteds family bonding, wearing face masks as well as doing exercise and meditation as coping mechanisms The study concluded with recommending the need to provide social safety nets in form of giving in-kind transfers to local communities in times of difficulties. For instance, during the second wave of the pandemic there was need to provide social safety nets to the local population as this could provide the much needed support to the people who needed it.