Milka Nyariro
Milka Nyariro is a doctoral student in the Faculty of Education, Department of Integrated Studies in Education. Her concentration is Gender and Women’s studies. Prior to enrolling for the doctorate program, Milka worked with African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) as a Research Officer in the Education Research Program. Part of her responsibilities included coordinating data collection and participating in data analysis, report writing and dissemination of research findings.
Milka worked with local community based organizations to implement an educational intervention at the community level. The objective of the intervention was to expose disadvantaged girls to “after school support” to improve their learning outcomes. This was done through i) community conversations with local leaders and parents in the community, ii) exposure to afterschool support in literacy and numeracy, and iii) mentorship by girls from the same environment who have defied the odds and challenges of the slums and transited to secondary schools. Milka also worked on two other projects that evaluated; i) The impact of fee funding on complimentary schools in urban informal settlements and ii) A project that aims to develop a cost-effective, scalable models of Early Childhood Education that ensure 3-6 years old children in Kenya are mentally, physically, socially and emotionally ready to start and succeed, in primary school.
Previously, Milka worked with various institutions in Kenya. They include; Kenya Nuclear Electricity Board (KNEB) as a research and executive assistant to the Board, she organized and participated in workshops and board meetings; Committee of Experts on Constitutional Review, as a Research and Technical Support Officer- responsible for collecting views from Kenyan citizens on thematic areas in the processes of constitutional review and participated in the analysis of views to inform the drafting of sections of the Constitution; Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (now Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission-EACC) as a research assistant where she participated in collection of both quantitative and qualitative data on annual perception surveys, Population Council as a research assistant where she was involved in various projects as a data collection assistant using structured and semi-structured data collection tools. She also participated in qualitative data collection as a moderator in focus group discussions and interviewer during In-depth interviews and Research International (East Africa).
During her tenure with APHRC, Milka worked with researchers in her institution to disseminate study findings in regional and international conferences including the 58th and 59th Annual Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) conferences and Partnership to Strengthen Innovation and Practice in Secondary Education (PSIPSE).
Milka holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Anthropology from the University of Nairobi, Kenya. After her Master’s program, she was awarded a fellowship from the Combat Diseases of Poverty Consortium (CDPC) in collaboration with National University of Ireland-Maynooth (NUI-M). On successful completion of her studies, she is interested in pursuing a career in academe. Her research interests are on gender, sexuality, women and girls’ studies, sexual reproductive health and education. Her provisional thesis tittle is “The impact of sexuality education on learning achievements of teenage girls in urban slums in Nairobi, Kenya”