Journal of Education

Preamble
Committed to open free access, the KIJE seeks to be a leading peer reviewed, online interdisciplinary journal of education focusing on research in education covering the African continent. It invites submissions from around the world that have a dedicated focus on education in Africa.

The journal includes a particular interest in research toward scholarly analyses of issues and trends that inform educational practice(s) within and/or across sectors. Of particular interest to the journal are policy issues and impacts, social justice in education, climate change research in education, curricula, teaching, learning, and pedagogy, teacher preparation, resilient education systems and practices, education and the UN sustainable development goals. Please make sure to read the instructions for authors before submitting your manuscript.

The journal is published online four times a year: March, June, September, and December.

Journal policies
The KIJE is strictly guided by the following policies which are briefly outlined below and which have largely been drawn from the internationally acknowledged Committee On Publication Ethics, COPE guidelines appended at the end of this document.

Below we highlight key elements of each of the following:

1. Publication Ethics Policy
2. Plagiarism Policy
3. Peer Review and Complaints Policy
4. Conflict of Interest Policy
5. Copy right and access policy
6. Editorial board policy
7. Advisory board policy
8. Generative AI policy

In addition to the above policies, the KIJE has the following guidelines:
1. Author guidelines
2. Reviewer guidelines
3. Publishing fees

Policies
Publication Ethics Policy

1. Anonymity: all names of institutions or participants including proxy information that may easily lead to the identification of participants must be expunged from articles submitted for publication to the KIJE.

2. Confidentiality: information provided by research participants must be treated with the utmost confidentiality and cannot be divulged in ways which may compromise or jeopardize the integrity of the sources of the information.
3. Informed consent: research participants must be fully informed about the purposes of the research and its publication and their data can only be used after they have signed an informed consent undertaking.
4. Right to withdraw: all research participants must be told that they have the right to withdraw from the research at any time and without giving any reasons for their decisions
5. Beneficence: participants must be accorded full disclosure about how they will benefit from being informants orparticipants. Benefits accruing to the system as a result of their involvement must also be disclosed.
6. The above constitute a general framework of ethical guidelines which authors must observe usually before data collections

7. A statement of ethical adherence must be included in each article at the time of submission for review

Plagiarism Policy
1. The KIJE operates a stringent anti-plagiarism policy. We define plagiarism as
unacknowledged use of material from other sources.
2. Acknowledgement of origin of materials obtained from other sources should be
done in accordance with the latest APA GUIDELINES which this journal uses.
3. Authors must test the similarity index of their articles by placing it through a
plagiarism check software. The KIJE only reviews and accepts articles checked via
turn it in software. A 15% similarity index is the maximum allowable for articles
published by the KIJE.
4. Every article submitted for publication must be accompanied with a Turnitin
similarity index report.
5. The KIJE subjects 20% of all the articles it publishes to its own similarity index
checks.
Peer review and complaints policy
1. The KIJE operates a double-blind independent peer review policy. By this we
mean the following: double blind means that the reviewers will not know who the
authors are, nor will the authors know who reviewed their work. Independent review
means that the reviewers, though invited by the editor in chief to review, will only do
so voluntarily. There is no financial inducement involved for undertaking review work
at the journal.
2. when an article arrives at the desk of the Editor in chief, it is immediately reviewed
for relevance to the journal, scope, and language efficacy. This is usually done by the
Editor in chief or the Journal administrator, if appropriate. The purpose of this initial
desk review is to determine if the article worth sending to reviewers.
3. The authors are informed in writing of the decision of the editor at this stage.
4. The journal administrator helps the Editor in Chief to identify three of the most
suitable reviewers for the article who are then contacted by email. At this point, all
references to the actual names of the author/s are expunged from the paper. The
request to review should also be accompanied by the abstract.
5. The potential reviewers are asked to indicate their willingness to review and the
task completion requirements are spelt out at this stage.
6. As soon as the reviewers agree to review, the paper is sent to them, together with
the review guidelines and review comments sheet.

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7. The author is again informed when this has been done and an indicative review
time should be given here.
8. When the independent reviews come in, the editor in chief should read these,
especially the recommendations. The key recommendations should be compiled ed
in one documents which is then sent to the author/s for revision.
9. When the revisions are done, an editorial board meeting is called to review the
process, the recommendations, and the corrections. Any outstanding matters at this
stage should be communicated to the authors with new deadlines for final
submission.
10. When the corrections have been done and approved, the Journal editorial
assistant will then suggest which articles go to which issue. At this stage, date of
submission should be taken into account when allocating articles to issues. Under
normal circumstances, publication priority should be based on a first come first serve
process. Other considerations including number of articles from specific institutions
in the same issue need to be considered to ensure a fair distribution of publishing
opportunities to all.
11. Usually, the Editor in Chief calls another brief meeting of the editorial board
members available to review the entire process leading to the publication of a
specific issue.
Dealing with complaints
Authors complain over a myriad of issues including the review process, the quality of
the review especially the contradiction between the comments of different reviewers,
the time taken to review. They also complain that the changes they made were not
reflected in the final article. The following are broad principles followed at the KIJE
when dealing with complaints:
12. Immediately acknowledge complaints when they are received at the
journal, promising the complainant to expect a resolution within a
stipulated timeframe.
13. The Journal should have a specific team identified to deal with author
complaints. Such teams should usually have a legally trained person and
not more than three other experts. If the team is locally available, they
could meet in person otherwise they could also meet online.
14. The decision should be communicated to the Editor in Chief who then
writes to the complainant with the outcome and resolution.
15. As a general tule, complaints should be dealt with in a week or less.
Conflict of Interest policy
Conflict of interest happens when the integrity of the journal decisions have been or
are perceived to have been compromised because of some or all of the following:
1. A reviewer who might know the author.
2. A reviewer who works in the same institution as the author
3. A reviewer who has previously published with the author
4. A reviewer who is a member of the editorial board and is reviewing an article
by another board member.

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In all cases, the KIJI will establish a declaration form which reviewers and editorial
board members routinely complete each time they are assigned reviewing
responsibilities.

Copy right and access policy.
The KIJE will assume full copy right for all materials it publishes both online and in
print. We define copy right as the type of intellectual property that protects the
original works of the authors. This means that whatever work is published by KIJE:
1. Can be reproduced by the author for academic purposes.
2. Can be further developed by the author and by others in furtherance of the
knowledge project. When this is done, permission must be sought from the
KIJE in the first instance.
3. Distribute copies of the work to the public for sale or other transfer of
ownership
4. Transform the work into other digital forms if there is demand which reflects
issues of inequity of access.
5. All online customers have free access to the material published by the journal.
6. The published materials are freely downloadable by members of the public.
Editorial Board policy
The KIJE will be governed by the Editorial Board which will also work in close
conjunction with an independent Advisory board.
The Editorial Board will comprise:
1. A wide range of scholars and practitioners including 50% Professors, 40%
doctoral qualified and 10% specially invited because other acknowledged
expertise and service to education.
2. The Board will comprise of a minimum of 20 individuals, with a good
representation of both Male and Female.
3. Not more than 3 members will be expected to be from any one institution,
including the hosting institution.
4. The editorial Board will be chaired by the Editor in Chief
5. The Editorial Board will have at least one general meeting every year.
6. The Editor in Chief shall have the right to convene ad hoc Editorial board
meetings with no less that 20% of the size of the board to transact routine
board matters such as considering the review comments of reviewers,
overseeing the processes leading to the publishing of a specific issue, dealing
with routine author complaints, among others.
7. The editorial board editorial members may be allocated reviewing
responsibilities from time to time.
8. The editorial board shall always seek to maintain the integrity of the journal in
the public domain and especially discuss the primary issue of journal impact
and integrity at every AGM.
9. The editorial board shall comprise a good selection of people from both the
international, regional, and in-country communities. At least 5 of the members
shall be from outside the continent of Africa and be as widely distributed
across the other continents.

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10. In conjunction with the Advisory Board, the Editorial Board must organise
periodic training for reviewers to keep abreast with policies and enhance the
quality of review.
The Advisory Board
The Advisory Board shall have the responsibility to inform the Editorial Board of the
latest best practices and developments in the area of publishing.
1. It will especially advise on issues of indexing, conferencing, links with other
journals, impact issues, among others.
2. It will comprise of at least 6 members, three of who should be international,
and remainder will be selected from the region and from Rwanda.
3. Members can be invited to submit CVs as part of the recruitment to
membership of the boards.
4. The advisory board should meet at least quarterly in March, June,
September, and December.
5. The Advisory Board selects its own chair.
6. The Advisory Board will have a standing item at the Editorial Board AGM to
report on their observations and make recommendations.
The Generative AI policy
The KIJE acknowledges the centrality of Artificial Intelligence and its potential to
generate knowledge for both users and producers. While its use and applications
must be encouraged and supported, authors need to be mindful of the following:
1. Not to plagiarise material from AI platforms as this constitutes a serious
breach of intellectual integrity.
2. All material utilised from AI sources must be properly acknowledged in
appropriate ways as indicated by the KIJE (see author guidelines)
3. The quality of AI generated material is high. Editors must be careful to not
depend entirely on external quality of writing as this might reflect some
people’s financial capability to purchase AI products while poor authors would
depend entirely on their own devices. The conceptual, theoretical, analytical,
and methodological efficacy of papers should always be considered first
ahead of linguistic elegance.
4. The journal should establish a social platform presence to monitor reader
reactions to its publications, fine tuning the journal quality processes, identify
potential issues early before they get out of hand, and engage with readers
more readily.

Author Guidelines
1. Authors must not start writing before they read these guidelines carefully.
Please feel free to consult with the Editor in Chief in case you do not fully
understand any aspect of these guidelines.
2. At KIJE, we fully endorse the COPE guidelines on AI and Publishing and in
particular, to note the following:

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3. Authors who use AI tools must be transparent in disclosing the AI tools was
used and which tool was used.
4. Authors have full responsibility of the content of their manuscripts, even those
parts produced by AI tools, and are thus liable for any breach of publication
ethics.
5. Authors must be satisfied with the scope of the journal before they decide to
publish with the journal.
6. Authors are advised to read a few articles from those published previously by
the journal to satisfy themselves about suitability of the KIJE for what they
wish to publish.
7. Authors can contact the Editor in Chief with any queries regarding publication
before they make any publication decisions.
8. Two main types of papers are generally admissible at KIJE,
conceptual/theoretical and empirical papers.
9. Conceptual papers generally tend to use secondary data from other sources
to advance new or emerging thinking. Empirical papers, which most of
authors tend to submit, use primary data from research they themselves have
conducted.
10. Authors are advised to comply with the following: length of articles (usually
between 6000 and 8000 words per article)
11. The journal adheres to the APA referencing style. The APA system is
regularly updated and the journal.
12. Authors are advised to visit the website Reference examples for guidance
related to various types of publications including the following: periodicals,
books, edited books, chapter in edited book, reports and Gray literature,
conference presentations and proceedings, dissertations and theses,
unpublished and informally published works, MOOC referencing’ Power-Point
slides and Lecture notes. Radio and broadcast references, YouTube video
reference, podcasts references.
13. The general structure of papers accepted at KEJI will usually include: a title; a
250 word abstract with 5 or 6 words, an introduction and background, a
literature review, a statement of the problem, methodology, findings,
discussion, and conclusions. Depending on genre, these structural guidelines
can be varied.
14. When submitting, authors are advised to make sure they submit a similarity
index report, and a report by a registered English language editor to confirm
that the paper has been reviewed for language, grammar, and spelling
checks. Authors are advised that the final draft of the paper submitted for
publication after the review process should still be accompanied by these two
reports.

Reviewers’ guidelines
The review process serves two major purposes.
1. To provide a basis for identifying and recommending only the best articles with
the most convincing evidence bases.

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2. To create a supportive and nurturing environment, recognising that authors
are at different levels, some need little support while others need more
support.
3. The table below provides useful information for both reviewers and authors
about what to expect in each of the major components of the paper.
Component of the
paper

Criteria for high
quality

Comments about
how this section
meets the criteria

Total score
achieved for this
section

The title Must be short,
clear, and
informative.
Must usually say
what is being
researched, why,
with who, and how.
Abstract Must be concise
and not exceed the
limit set, must
provide a
purpose/rationale,
the key questions/
objectives;
methodological
approach, the key
findings, and key
implications; must
end with a set of
five to seven key
words.

Introduction and
background

Must clearly show
why this research
is necessary, what
might happen if this
research is not
conducted, provide
a description of the
status-quo and its
inadequacies and
indicate in broad
terms what seems
to be the context of
the problem
including especially
what we don’t quite
know.

Literature review Should at the very
minimum have
three sub sections:
1. A

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conceptual
section
where the
key words
are
discussed
critically.
2. A theoretical
section,
where the
critical
theories
associated
with this
area are
discussed.
Critically the
section must
end with a
discussion
of how the
theories
influence the
decisions
made about
this paper.
3. The
empirical
review,
which
provides a
summation
of the state
of
knowledge
in this area,
the research
conducted in
different
parts of the
world
regarding
this area.
The review
must end
with
identification
of gaps for
this
research.

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Methodology Clear discussion of
paradigmatic
considerations,
design, sampling
data collection,
ethics and quality
control

Findings Visually appealing
presentation;
analysis and
interpretation

Conclusions and
recommendations

Processing of
conclusions from
the analysis,
limitations, and
recommendations
and especially how
they are evidence
based

Referencing Strict adherence to

APA, full
representation of
all references.

Review grid and criteria.
Publishing fees
Payment will only be required after the article has been reviewed, accepted, and
earmarked for publication.
Authors pay page fees which are set annually. In 2025, the page fees are set at $10
per page.
Papers should be submitted in 1.5 line spacing, and 12-point fond Times Roman.