Perceived Factors Influencing Adoption of Modern Cooking Technologies in Public Secondary Schools in Nairobi County of Kenya
Abstract
Biomass energy usage in Kenya, accounts for about 68% of country’s total energy
consumption, the major consumers being households, communal institutions such as secondary
schools, and small and medium enterprises. Firewood has remained the fuel of choice for
institutional use. However, the growing population and firewood demand in schools is reaching
alarming levels. However, a myriad of alternative energy sources is available for use in
institutions, these include pellets and briquettes, LPG Gas, Biogas and even electricity. This
has led to innovation and technologies resulting in production and commercialization of
improved cookstoves and other environmentally friendly cooking technologies including
Savika Biojiko, Liquefied Petroleum Gas, Biogas, Ethanol, and Electric stoves. The intention
of this research was to investigate the perceived factors which determine the acceptance and
usage of green cooking technologies in government owned Secondary Schools of Kenya, with
a case study of Nairobi County. The study adopted a descriptive research design in which it
targeted secondary school principals, and the manufacturers. A total of 56 participants took
part in the study. Semi-structured questionnaires and interview guides were used to gather
information from the participants. The data collected was processed, cleaned, and analyzed
through inferential and descriptive statistics using SPSS version 23. The mean student
population was about 866±455 with an average annual income of KES. 2,368,422±1,624,987.
Almost half (48.1%) of the schools sampled fully relied on firewood, 19.2% of them used
charcoal to complement firewood, 17.3% used LPG besides firewood, 9.6% used charcoal and
LPG alongside firewood, while 5.8% supplemented firewood with briquettes. The study
further established that socio-economic factors, stove characteristics and environment related
factors significantly influence the adoption of modern cooking technologies. Stove
characteristics had the highest positive correlation of r=0.903, (p< 0.001) followed by
Environment related factors which had a correlation of r=0.638 (p< 0.015) and then
Socioeconomic which had a correlation of r=0.614 (p< 0.001). Additionally when adoption of
MCT was regressed against socioeconomic factors, stove characteristics and environment
related factors, the study established that Socioeconomic factors, Stove characteristics and
Environment related factors significantly predicted Adoption of MCT, F (3, 211) =101.506,
p=0.001. The coefficient of determination R2 value was 0.669. This shows that 66.9% of the
variance in adoption of MCT can be explained by Social-economic factors, Stove
characteristics, Environment related factors. For every unit increase in socioeconomic factors,
adoption of MCT could increase by 0.175 units (17.5%), for a unit increase in stove
characteristics, adoption of MCT would increase by 0.267 units (26.7%); and for a unit
increased in Environment related factors, Adoption of MCT, would increase by 0.227 units
(22.7%). The findings based on data analysis revealed the trends in adoption of modern
cooking technologies, consequently, uncovering the critical reasons that cause overreliance of
institutions on fuel wood which is a critical area in Biomass studies. Thus, a new practice in
sustainable institutional cooking may be arrived at. The study therefore recommends that stove
manufacturers should consider doing market research among the secondary schools in Kenya
to establish their expectation with regards to which modern cooking technologies.
Additionally, Systematic and structured awareness creation about modern cooking
technologies should be formulated just to target the secondary schools and implemented across
the County and country and Policies should be formulated, customized, implemented for the
adoption of modern cooking technologies in secondary schools such that government has a
defined role and mandate of enforcing the adoption policy in all secondary schools.
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
- Faculty of Arts [638]
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