In a short term, low interest rates minimize credit risk since refinancing costs are lowered and the net worth of borrowers is increased, which decreases credit risk of outstanding bank loans. Because of the number of outstanding loans being higher in comparison of that of new loans, the low interest rates therefore only make the portfolio less risky only in the short term. The objective of the study was to establish the effect of the lending interest rate on the default rate of Kenyan Micro-Finance Institutions. In addition it is focused on review of the growing empirical and theoretical studies which have endeavoured to examine the range of magnitude and effects of lending interest rates on the default rate of Micro-Finance Institutions. The target population was all the 13 licensed MFIs. Secondary sources of data were employed. Panel data was utilized, data was collected for several units of analysis over a varying time periods. The research employed inferential statistics, which included correlation analysis and panel multiple linear regression equation with the technique of estimation being Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) so as to establish the relationship of the lending interest rates and by extension the control variables, collateral and derivatives, and the default rates of MFIs. The study findings were that lending interest rates have a significant association and relationship with default rate. Lending interest rate has a significant negative relationship with default rate. The study made recommendations to policy makers like the National Treasury and CBK to regulate the interest rates in order to mitigate default rates. Recommendations were also made to MFIs, and by extension, other financial institutions, to utilize interest rates in order to mitigate default rates by customers. Further recommendations were that particular focus should be made on the lending interest rates in order to mitigate default rates.

The stock markets play a vital role in the development of the economy in a country by acting as a platform to raise business capital, mobilize savings, control the management of firms, and to raise government capital. The performance of the markets is influenced by different factors among them being macroeconomic factors. This study sought to determine the effects of the volatility of selected macro-economic factors on the stock market returns in Kenya, with a key focus on interest and foreign exchange rate volatility. The study used the NSE 20 share index to determine the stock market returns, the interbank rate to proxy interest rate and the USD/KES for the foreign exchange rate. Panel data from January 2009 to December 2018 was used and daily observations were applied. The study was based on the Markov switching model. The results indicated that during the period under study, there were three regimes characterized as low, medium and high volatility regimes. The longest regime was the moderate volatility regime followed by the high volatility regime. The shortest regime was the low volatility regime. During the high volatility regime, the stock returns followed a random walk with little levels of predictability. In the moderate volatility regime, the historical performance was positively correlated to the stock market returns, while there was no significant effect of the volatility of interest and foreign exchange rates on the stock market returns. The period of low volatility was characterized with significant positive and negative effects of the foreign exchange and the interest rates, and the historical performance on the stock market returns. Based on the results, the study found out that the effects of the volatility of the interest rate and foreign exchange rate differ depending on the distinctive volatility regimes.

Globally, investors are risk averse hence; they implement strategies aimed at minimizing risk at a given level of returns. Logically, investors would prefer lower risk investments projects given the level of returns. “The study sought to examine the effect of portfolio diversification on financial performance of investment firms listed at the NSE, Kenya. The study adopted descriptive research design. The target population included all 5 listed investment firms as at 31st December 2019. The study was therefore a census survey of all listed investment firms that have been in operation during the study period from 2010 to 2019. The study extracted annual secondary data from audited financial statements and other published data of the concerned listed investment firms. The data was collected for ten years beginning 2010 to 2019. The extracted data was recorded on data collection sheets. Diagnostic tests namely test for normality, autocorrelation and multicollinearity, serial correlation and heteroscedasticity were conducted. The purpose of the tests was to ensure that the regression model adopted is robust. The data was checked for completeness and then keyed into excel 2016. The variables were then generated using different functions in excel. The organized data from excel were exported to STATA version 14 for descriptive and inferential analysis. Descriptive statistics involved frequencies, percentages, mean and standard deviation while inferential statistics comprised of pairwise correlation and multiple regression analysis. Regression analysis aid in establishing the effect of portfolio diversification on financial performance of listed investment firms. The study utilized OLS regression models as shown in equation (1) and (2). The significance of the effect of explanatory variables were conducted at 95% confidence level. The Pearson correlation analysis revealed that the correlation between investment portfolio diversification, firm size, liquidity and financial performance was positive. Analysis of variances showed that investment portfolio diversification, firm size and liquidity had a significant effect on financial performance of financial performance among investment firms listed at the NSE Kenya. Additionally, the regression coefficient revealed that investment portfolio diversification had a positive and significant effect on financial performance of investment firms listed at the NSE Kenya. Firm size had a positive and significant effect on financial performance of investment firms listed at the NSE Kenya. Additionally, liquidity had a positive but statistically insignificant effect on financial performance of investment firms listed at the NSE Kenya. Based on study findings regarding the effect of investment portfolio diversification, the study concludes that the positive effect of investment portfolio diversification on financial performance in model equations (1) & (2) implies that improvement in portfolio diversification leads to improving financial performance of the listed investment firms. Regarding the effect of firm size on financial performance, the study concludes that the positive effect of firm size on financial performance implies that increasing firm size in terms of total assets, leads to improvement of financial performance of listed investment firms. Finally, regarding the effect liquidity on financial performance of listed investment firms in Kenya, the study concludes that the positive effect of liquidity on financial performance can be explained by the fact that firms that have adequate liquidity are able to settle maturing obligation without fail hence. The study makes recommendations. Regarding investment portfolio diversification, the study recommends to management of listed investment firms to diversify their investment portfolio. The firms should broaden their portfolio by addition more assets classes to their portfolios. The study also recommends to capital market authority to regulate and encourage investment of listed investment firms to diversify their investment portfolios. The study recommends to management of listed investment firms to improve their assets through additional investment. The listed investment firms should offer more common stock to the current and prospective shareholders to boost their capital.”

This study aimed at examining the influence of assistive technology on Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) performance for visually impaired students at Thika School for the Blind. The study objectives were to; examine the availability of assistive technology, to examine selection criteria for assistive technology, challenges faced by visually impaired students and teachers when using assistive technology, and the factors influencing use of assistive technology to boost KCES performance in Thika School for the Blind. Case study research design was used in organizing data collection in the research. The target population was 133 students and 10 teachers. The first sample comprised of 40 students was selected from form two and three while the second sample included 10 teachers. Out of the 40 students sampled, only 36 of them filled and returned questionnaires. All teachers accepted to take part in the study. Questionnaires and observation checklists were sent to teachers and student respondents for data collection. A coefficient of 0.7 was established when computing for reliability of instruments. Special Package Statistical Software (SPSS) was used to generate descriptive statistics data and summarised in tables. On the first objective, braille was the primary reading and writing modes used by many students to revise and do assignments. However, most recommended that computer and iPads were the most appropriate assistive that can help visually impaired students to learn and engage in other activities. Students demonstrated the need for assistive technologies that are easy to use and allows them to access various digital content xi formats. In the second objective, it was noted that nature of visual impairment, availability of assistive technology tools, and lesson objectives were the major factors considered when selecting assistive technology. The findings in the third objective indicates that inadequate computers and lack of computer literacy skills among students and teachers were the main challenges impending the usage of assistive technology at Thika School for the Blind. The fourth objective demonstrated that appropriate use of assistive technology can significantly improve KCSE performance among visually impaired students. It was concluded that, schools for visually impaired student in Kenya rely mainly on braille, slate & stylus but less on computers and iPads. Also, it was noted that such assistive technology tools are not utilised appropriately. Thus, the following recommendations were made to encourage effective provision and utilisation of assistive technology to boost KCSE performance. Firstly, it was recommended that the Ministry of Education Science and Technology (MoeST) should encourage usage of assistive technology and provide a variety of assistive technologies that enable students with different nature of visual impairment to access content and enjoy learning like their sighted counterparts. However, the assistive technology devices and tools supplied should be portable, easy to use, and faster to enable visually impaired students learn independently. Secondly, the study recommends that schools should consider personal differences among the visually impaired learners when selecting assistive technology. Nature of disabilities and lesson objectives should be considered as the main determinants of assistive technology chosen. Personal differences among students should also guide teachers when selecting assistive technology suitable for each student. Thirdly, MOE should provide enough computers and other forms of assistive technology to schools for visually impaired. Teacher training and development programs were also recommended because they can alleviate challenges impending the use of assistive technology in Thika School for the Blind. Fourthly, the study recommends that schools for visually impaired should focus on appropriate alignment between pedagogical drive and catalytic drive with assistive technology tools and devices to boost academic performance that would improve KCSE results. The researchers made three suggestions for future studies within the area of assistive technology. Firstly, research on strategies that can be implemented to promote quality access to curriculum. Secondly, research on the most appropriate instructional strategies that can be used to teach visually disabled students using assistive technology. Thirdly, study the role of the Kenyan government and the MoeST in the implementation of assistive technology in schools for the blind.

African leafy vegetables (ALVs) are vegetables that are locally consumed and whose edible parts include leaves, young shoots and flowers. They have a crucial role in enhancing food security, nutrition, biodiversity, income and sustainable development in Kenya. Spider plant (Cleome gynandra L.) is one of the ALVs with a great potential for improving food security and income among rural and urban resource-poor communities. However, its productivity is low partly due to lack of suitable varieties, poor soil fertility, drought stress and poor agronomic practices. Currently, there is scanty information on its potential for vegetable and seed production and adaptability to water stress. Therefore, the objectives of this study were: (i) to evaluate the agronomic traits of selected spider plant accessions; and (ii) to determine the effect of water stress on growth and yield of selected spider plant accessions. In the first objective, a study was conducted at Kabete in the field and greenhouse and on-farm in Migori County to assess agronomic traits of 40 selected spider plant accessions using a randomized complete block design with three replications. In the second objective, 14 selected Kenyan spider plant accessions were grown under soils at 40%, 60%, 80% and 100% field capacity (FC) conditions in a greenhouse at Kabete between June 2018 and March 2019. In both experiments, data was collected on plant growth, physiological and yield attributes and subjected to analysis of variance using GenStat 15th edition at 5% probability level. Number of days to emergence and emergence level varied from 4 (accessions GBK-045436) to 12.7 (accessions GBK-032302 and GBK-031992) and 23.1% (accession Baringo) to 59% (Commercial variety), respectively. Number of leaves per plant and seed yield per plant varied from 23.2 (accession Mombasa) to 121.7 (accession GBK-028563) and 0.3 g (accession Mombasa) to 16.8 g (accession GBK-045456), respectively. Plant height ranged from 16.0 cm (accession Mombasa) to 107.1 cm (accession GBK-045436), while 100 seed weight varied from 60 mg (accession Mombasa) to 170 mg (accession GBK-031994). Number of leaves per plant were proportional to number of primary branches (R2 = 0.81, P≤0.01) and plant height (R2 = 0.87, P≤0.01). Water stress reduced plant height by 9.9%, 26.2%, and 38.5%, and leaf yield by 25.7%, 55.1%, and 74.2% at 80%, 60% and 40% field capacity, respectively. Pod number per spider plant reduced by 17.0%, 47.9%, 61.5% and seed yield per spider plant by 43.9%, 77.9% and 90.6% at 80%, 60% and 40% FC, respectively. Chlorophyll content reduced by 11.3%, 26.7%, 38.2% at 80%, 60%, 40% FC, respectively. Results indicate that there exist significant genotypic differences among the evaluated spider plant landraces and the commercial variety in adaptation to drought. The responses to drought in most of the physiological, growth and yield parameters were dependent on the accessions. Genotypes that expressed superior agronomic traits for yield such as accessions GBK-032210, GBK-040449, GBK-031991 Kakamega and GBK-045456, point to the existence of exploitable drought tolerance genes in spider plant landraces that can be utilized in breeding programmes for drought adaptability aimed at improving spider plant growth and yield

The private sector investment plays an integral part in guaranteeing economic soundness of an economy. In Kenya, the government outlay increased sharply in the last two decades although this has not been commensurate to the private capital growth rate. Existing literature analyzed the impact of government expenditure on private investment using aggregated government spending i.e. recurrent and development expenditures only. These researches have yielded mixed results with some in favor of the crowding-in hypothesis and other crowding-out effects. Due to this controversy, the link between private capital and specific public spending components remains unresolved. Limited studies have disaggregated the government outlay into sector expenditures in this thematic area. More so, Kenya has witnessed a tremendous increase in spending on infrastructural projects such as highways, ports, standard gauge railway, and massive investment in health and education sectors. All these efforts are meant to accelerate the realization of the Kenya Vision 2030 as well as the ‘Big Four’ Agenda of the Government. The objective of this study was to establish how various public sector outlay and debt charges impact private investment in the country. This study disaggregated government spending in education, health, agriculture, defense, infrastructure, and debt repayment and examined their separate effect on private investment.The study used secondary data for 1963 to 2018 from Kenya National Bureau of Statistics various Statistical Abstracts and Economic surveys. Both the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model and the Error Correction Model (ECM) were used to realize the outlined objectives. The study yielded mixed results with some components indicating promotion and demotion of private investment in the country. The recurrent outlay in infrastructure and capital outlays in health as well as debt charges were found to crowd-in private investment significantly. Education, agriculture, and infrastructure recurrent expenditures and infrastructure and agriculture capital spending have a positive influence on private investment though insignificantly. Other variables were found to crowd out private investment. This study recommends that the government should consider increasing and sustaining spending in education agriculture and infrastructure sectors to stimulate the economy while downsizing spending in sectors that crowd out private investment in the country.

The purpose of the s research was to investigate the influence of school principals’ leadership styles on students’ discipline in public secondary schools in Imenti South constituency, Meru County, Kenya. The research employed the following objectives in attaining the purpose of the study: : to determine the influence of principals’ democratic leadership style, authoritarian leadership style, transformational leadership style, and laissez faire leadership style towards learners’ behaviour within public secondary schools in Imenti South Sub-county, Meru County, Kenya. The research adopted concepts from situational leadership theory that was reflected in the theoretical framework. For the methodology instrument it utilized a descriptive survey research design. The target population comprised of school principals, teaching staff, preprimary in public secondary schools in Imenti South Sub-county. For sampling purposes, the population consisted of 19 principals, 151 teaching staff and 333 students s. Collection of data was achieved by the utilization of questionnaires as well as the use of interviewing guide. In determining instrument validity, it was done by obtaining inputs of lecturers supervising the work who delivered the technical knowledge; later instrument reliability was achieved by applying the test-retest approach. The analysis adopted descriptive statistics for both the quantitative and qualitative data that included mean and standard deviation; with results being detailed in frequencies and percentages. SPSS version 23.0 was applied in the analysis of data after entering data. From the analysis it was established that 106(90%) affirmed that school principals included the teaching staff in forming disciplinary programmes in the institution; secondly it was established that 106(90%) affirmed that school principal neglect the teaching staff input in disciplinary actions; a further 66(56%) within the teaching fraternity affirmed that principals rarely included the teaching staff during creation of rules regarding learners’ discipline Equally, 90(76%) of the teaching staff affirmed the principals having increased confidence levels and trust of his staff and student leaders; a further 66(56%) of the teaching staff affirmed that school principals act as mentors. The investigator aimed at determining the influence of a laissez faire style of leadership towards learners’ discipline. A significant number of the teaching staff 118(100%) countered the statement that school principals neglect the chain of command within schools. From the analysis the critical deductions included: a democratic leadership approach remains implemented partially as school principals engage learners during the creation of rules, school principals prefer a transformational leadership styles in managing institutions. It was also deduced that bad behavior by learners may be linked to efficiency of the leadership features that weaken good discipline like authoritarianism. Some of the recommendations advanced included; xiii school principals ought to acquire management expertise and processes enabling reduced rates of misconduct cases. The Education ministry initiates meetings and trainings intended to increase knowledge to the teachers on transformational leadership style. Local education officials must arrange for training programs for teaching staff reinforcing the relevance of principals to consider demands from the learners and hence avoid bad behavior.

Organizations seeking to gain competitive advantage in their industries make choice of strategies that can guarantee such advantage. Customer value strategy is among the strategies that organizations chose. However, how the managers perceive the strategy’s potential of creating competitive advantage varies among a cross-section of managers. This perception can have implications on how the managers carry out the strategy because different factors influence such perceived link. In its quest for competitive advantage in Kenya’s banking industry, the Investment and Mortgage (I&M) Bank, Kenya Ltd pursues customer value strategy among other strategies. On this backdrop, this study was designed with the objective of determining the perceived link between customer value strategy and competitive advantage at I&M Bank Ltd as well as the factors that may influence the perception among managers of such link. Using a cross-sectional descriptive survey, primary data was collected from 75 managers of I&M Bank using a structured questionnaire and analyzed through descriptive statistics and one sample t-test at 95% confidence level. The findings of the study show that 24 out of the 29 descriptive statements presented to the respondents linking customer value strategy and competitive advantage has a mean score of 3.00 and above with majority of the statements have a mean score of above 4.00. The statements also had high t-values and demonstrable statistical significance (p≤0.05) meaning that the variation between the reported means and the normal distribution mean (3) was significant. This depicts an overall concurrence among respondents that customer value strategy is closely related to competitive advantage of I&M Bank Ltd. The results further show that organizational culture, (Mean ≥3.00), is the only factor that influences the perception of the managers of the link between customer value strategy and competitive advantage. Other factors reported means lower than 3 with negative t-values that were statically significant (p≤0.05). The study draws a conclusion that I&M’s competitive advantage is linked to the adoption of customer value strategy and that organizational culture plays a pivotal role in influencing manager’s view of such a link. The findings of this study, to a large extent, render support for Dynamic Capability and Resource Based theories as well as the Theory of Planned Behavior. The results of the study prove that to attain competitive advantage through implementation of customer value strategy, a business should have the ability to identify its uniqueness from that of its competitors. Customer value strategy is thus essential in value communication and establishment of customer value. It encompasses the concept in the psyche of organizations which permeates all organizational components and thus has an influence on how a manager perceived customer value and competitive advantage. Organizations can, therefore, rely on the results of this study to be customer-centric in their strategic behavior through an enriched organizational culture. Based on the study’s limitations, further studies can be undertaken in different contexts as well as adopting different conceptualizations and methodologies.

This research study delved into the construct of metacognitive awareness among students and teachers in teaching and learning, and how this has influenced educational achievement amongst senior secondary learners in the county under investigation. Metacognition is the ability of learners to actively think about how effectively or otherwise they are learning The targets for the research were; (a) To find out the extent to which students incorporate metacognition in their studies, (b) To investigate the degree to which tutors foster metacognitive instruction in their pedagogy, (c) To determine the impacts of metacognitive knowledge on scholastic achievement and (d) To find out if there is gender disparities in metacognitive awareness among students. The research design that was adopted was descriptive survey design. The instruments for data collection were; Metacognitive awareness inventory for learners and Metacognitive awareness inventory for tutors. The MAIS and MAIT tools are self-reporting tools whereby the learners and teachers give their perception about their metacognitive awareness by answering a likert scale questionnaires with a number of statements capturing all aspects of metacognitive awareness. These tools had been tested and are known to have the recommended levels of reliability and consistency. Permission was sought from the owners of the instruments. Purposive sampling was used to sample three educational institutions within the County of Nairobi for the study. An aggregate of 300 form three students were sampled for this study from the three schools alongside 21 teachers, seven from each of the sampled schools randomly sampled. Analysis of data involved the computation of means and standard deviations and ANOVA to determine the relationships of the variables under study. The research findings revealed that learners in form three are average when it comes to metacognitive awareness in their daily learning endeavors. It was also discovered that teachers averagely engage metacognitive reflection in their daily teaching and learning pursuits. When comparative analysis of metacognitive awareness among students based on gender was done, it was evident that there was no significant differences among gender wise. The findings further proved that there is a strong positive correlation between students’ metacognitive awareness and academic performance in general