Your search

Abstract Background Frontline managers and health service providers are constrained in many contexts from responding to community priorities due to organizational cultures focused on centrally defined outputs and targets. This paper presents an evaluation of the Verbal Autopsy with Participatory Action Research (VAPAR) programme—a collaborative learning platform embedded in the local health system in Mpumalanga, South Africa—for strengthening of rural primary healthcare (PHC) systems. The...

Ghana has recently received much attention for human rights abuses against persons with mental illnesses in traditional ‘fetish’ and Christian prayer camps. Evidence has surfaced of Ghanaians with mental illnesses being forced against their will to attend the camps only to be physically abused, forcibly isolated and even chained to trees. Not only do these practices reveal a high level of stigma, but they also contravene the spirit and intention of the United Nations Convention on the Rights...

This article covers the historical background of Islamic education in South Africa, and deals more specifically with three institutions of higher Islamic education in the Western Cape: the Madina Institute, the International Peace College South Africa, and Dār al-ʿUlūm al-ʿArabiyyah al-ʿIslāmiyya (the Strand Seminary). These three institutions have been chosen partly because they have not been studied before, and partly because they were founded after South Africa became a democratic country...

The study set to determine the relationship between on-job training and employee turnover in the telecommunications sector in Kenya. Its objectives were: to investigate the kind of extant on-job training in Safaricom Ltd; to determine the effect of employee turnover after undergoing on-job training in Safaricom Ltd; to establish the factors motivating employees turnover after training in Safaricom Ltd and; to establish the relationship between on-job training and employees turnover in...

This paper sets to explore how Zimbabwean law and policy relate to the CRPD in informing educational practice for learners who are deaf. The paper is an analytical discussion of the educational policy and practice issues related to the recent recognition of Zimbabwean Sign Language (ZSL) in a multicultural context where mother-tongue-based teaching is a right for meeting the inclusive education needs of all learners, including those who are deaf. It argues that one-size-fits-all, deficit...

The study reported in this paper examined the leadership practices of successful principals leading teaching and learning in deprived Nigerian school contexts. The critical question is: ‘What are the leadership practices of principals leading teaching and learning in successful schools in a deprived Nigerian context?’ Data was generated through narrative interviews with purposively sampled principals. Following this, it was analyzed through narrative analysis and analysis of narratives. The...

The development of disability rights saw a spate of growth in the period preceding 2013 both internationally and in the East African region. During this period, most East African Community (EAC) partner states ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)1 as well as took steps to enact or review domestic legislation in the area of disability. At the East African regional level, several instruments were concluded for the empowerment of persons with disabilities...

The livelihoods of rural people have been plagued by the precarious impacts of climate change–related disasters manifesting through floods, heat waves, droughts, cyclones, and erratic temperatures. However, they have not remained passive victims to these impacts. In light of this, rural people are on record of employing a plethora of adaptation strategies to cushion their livelihoods from climate change impacts. In this vew, the role of social capital as a determinant of climate change...

Functional education and human development are not mutually exclusive. To achieve an all-round development, the fourth Sustainable Development Goal partly emphasizes the need to ‘… promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’ by year 2030. This article, therefore, uses a case study approach to analyse the impact of a government funded adult basic education programme in improving literacy level of Sehithwa community in rural, northwestern Botswana. Using a snowball technique and...

In April 2019, Nieuwoudt et al . published an article on the impact of age and education on cognitive functioning among coloured women in the Western Cape Province, South Africa (SA). The study reported that coloured women in SA have increased risk for low cognitive functioning, as a result of limited education and unhealthy lifestyles. The article was widely criticised, and the journal subsequently withdrew the piece. It was argued that the study was unethical as it perpetuated racial...

Despite the wide ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, children with disabilities are still marginalised and their status as rights holders not fully acknowledged in many parts of Africa. In response to the call for research to focus on a distinct African conceptualisation of disability , an exploratory desk study was conducted on the disability discourse on children with disabilities in Africa. Though the authors uncovered positive African...

Using Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone as the main case study, this commentary discusses developments on inclusive education in the West African Region. It evaluates the extent to which domestic legislation and policy framework in the three West African countries complies with the normative standards set in article 24 of Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) the commentary observes that none of the legislative and policy frameworks in the three West African States...

Research has revealed that persons with communication disabilities are at high risk of becoming victims of crime and are often repeat victims. Most people who are victims of crime turn to the criminal justice system for recourse by reporting the crime to the police and testifying in a criminal trial against the accused perpetrator.However, persons with communication disabilities may find accessing and participating effectively in the criminal justice system difficult. This is because...

The use of indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) in seasonal forecasting and adaptation to devastating vagaries of climate change has gained attention in academic discourses. The debates opened contrasting views with the first over-romanticizing IKS’ potentials, while the other arguing that it has many setbacks. In this study, we interrogated IKS’ roles in seasonal forecasting and chances of informing adaptation among poorly resourced smallholder farmers in ward 24, Bikita. Using focus group...

The majority of universities in South Africa offer face-to-face lectures, resulting in the neglect of online lectures, although learning management systems (LMS) have been adopted and are capable of supporting onlinelearning (e-learning). The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) forced universities to move fully online and to adopt Video Conferencing Technologies (VCT) to supplement LMS for e-learning. However, most students confront challenges related to a digital divide, raising the question of...

Many Higher Education Institutions use the Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) scale to evaluate the quality of instructors’ teaching. It includes students’ evaluation of the teacher, the teaching process, teaching approaches and the learning outcomes. Due to its reported dubious reliability and validity, and inherent bias in measuring the quality of teaching, SET remains a hotly debated and controversial instrument. This study evaluated thereliability and validity of the SET scale adopted...

The aim of this study was to assess the performance of multivariate statistical technique, principal component analysis (PCA) for investigating the impact of exposure to ambient air pollution on asthma in Moroccan infants under one-year-old. The histogram of the eigenvalues shows that the first plane, made up of the axes PC1 and PC2, represents 81.87% of the total inertia. It turns out to be sufficient to reflect the bulk of this inertia, which means that the first two axes are sufficient to...

Participation of young farmers with disabilities in agricultural capacity-building programs in their communities is important as a poverty reduction strategy for people with disabilities in Uganda. This research study comparatively examined participation of young farmers with and without disabilities in capacity-building programs designed for the public in Northern and Eastern Uganda. The study employed a comparative, mixed methodology, cross-sectional research designs involving 774 young...

The study examined the content validity of Chemistry MOCK examination questions for senior secondary school students set by Adamawa State Educational Resource Centre (ERC), Yola. Students have been passing the MOCK examinations but unfortunately performance poorly in the subject in their final year external examination like WAEC in Adamawa State. The main objective of the study was to determine the representativeness of the topics in the senior secondary school Chemistry curriculum in the...

Disability stigma in many low- and middle-income countries represents one of the most pervasive barriers preventing people with disabilities from accessing equal rights and opportunities, including the uptake of available assistive technology (AT). Previous studies have rarely examined how disability stigma may be shaped through factors endemic to social interactions, including how the use of assistive technology itself may precipitate or alleviate disability stigma. Through two strands of...