How Effective is Vocational Education and Training for Rehabilitation in Kenyan Prisons? A Study Protocol

Rehabilitation and reformation of offenders is one of the core functions of the Kenya Prisons Service. Kenya Prisons service has various modules of training that make the staff more effective and professional in carrying out their mandate of securing prisoners for the purpose of rehabilitation and reintegration back into society. Learning strategies can open up opportunities for increase in participation in formal and vocational training, broaden prisoner’s academic horizons and provide a second chance to learn the skills and competences needed in order to reintegrate in society and hence reduce recidivism. Recidivism is still evidenced in Kenya and therefore there is need to keenly investigate and interrogate specifically the Vocational Education and training programmes offered and find out whether they really meet the needs and expectations in assisting integration of Ex-prisoners back to society. The purpose of this research study is to determine the effectiveness of the methodologies employed in delivery of VET to aid in integrating Ex-prisoners to the society. The objectives of the study are to establish; the learning strategies employed, the nature and types of VET programmes being delivered in Kenya Prison, the adequacy and appropriateness of resources used in Prison training programme delivery, the perceptions on Vocational Education Training and other training fields in Kenya Prisons, and challenges of VET trained Ex-prisoners in the field of work.The study is based on the assumption that the prison authorities would spare time for the inmates to be interviewed and fill questionnaires fearlessly, and that the in-charge will be ready to respond to questionnaires without fear or intimidation from prison authorities. Target population will be of 1700 prison trainees, 25 prison trainers and 10 prison administrators. The study population will be a total of 369 prison trainees, 25 prison trainers, 10 administrators and 50 ex-convicts. Further the Prison authorities have sufficient data of the trained reconvicts already integrated in the society. Purposive sampling will be employed to reach out to the aforementioned key informants. Systematic random sampling will be used to identify the trainees to be interviewed. Reliability of the research instrument will be done by carrying out a pilot study and the items found to be inconsistent with objectives of the study will be left out so as to increase reliability. During the pilot study, the split half Pearson’s product moment correlation (r) formulae will be used to establish the extent to which items were consistent. Validity of research instruments will be done by consulting Vocational Education experts at the University of Eldoret and the pilot study will be used to test the content validity of the instruments. Document analysis, observation and semi-structured interviews will be conducted to gather the data. The proposed study will utilize content analysis approach in analyzing qualitative data and will involve quantitating where numbers will articulate the message clearer than words. In this study the quantitative data collected using questionnaires will be coded, entered, cleaned and analysed using the Statistical Package for Social sciences (SPSS 22) computer software. Basic features of the data will be explained by descriptive statistics such as frequencies, Mean and percentages. The Chi-Square test statistic (χ2) will be used to evaluate tests of Independence, whether association exists between Independent and dependent variables. The qualitative data obtained from the interviews will be transcribed, coded and interpreted thematically. Results of the proposed study will be discussed extensively and recommendations of the proposed situation analyses will seek to contribute to the information in aiding in the integration of trained ex-prisoners back to the society through the VET training.