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Purpose The increasing rate at which individuals, especially, females in Ghana are seeking higher education calls for an estimation of the returns to schooling and education in Ghana. Design/methodology/approach The study employs the Mincer equation to a representative cross-sectional micro-data from Ghana using OLS and instrumental variable (IV) methodologies. The paper uses spouse's education as instruments in the IV estimation. Findings Return to schooling was found to be higher for...

Abstract Background Sustainability of research culture in Sub-Saharan Africa is threatened in part by the lack of a critical mass of young researchers with the requisite skills and interest to undertake research careers. This paper describes an intensive mentorship programme combining hierarchical (vertical) and peer-to-peer (horizontal) mentoring strategies among young researchers in a resource limited setting in Sub-Saharan Africa. Methods A consortium of three partnering large Tanzanian...

Abstract Drought is a serious threat to agriculture in Ethiopia. This study examined the spatiotemporal variability of agricultural drought and its association with climatic variables in the Upper Awash basin. Mann–Kendall (MK) trend test was employed to examine the drought trend while Sen’s slop estimator and pixel-based linear regression model were used to analyze the magnitude of drought changes. The association between agricultural drought and climatic variables was evaluated by the...

We investigated the association between air pollution and asthma and bronchitis hospital admissions in Algiers city (Algeria). In addition, we used geographic information systems (GIS) and statistical methods to evaluate their correlation with the atmospheric pollution estimated by the lichen biomonitoring method of the index of atmospheric purity (IAP), the index of human impact (IHI) and environmental parameters. Thus, we georeferenced 976 local patients (including 771 patients with asthma...

Soil property and class maps for the continent of Africa were so far only available at very generalised scales, with many countries not mapped at all. Thanks to an increasing quantity and availability of soil samples collected at field point locations by various government and/or NGO funded projects, it is now possible to produce detailed pan-African maps of soil nutrients, including micro-nutrients at fine spatial resolutions. In this paper we describe production of a 30 m resolution Soil...

The realization of sustainable development goals depends not only on the availability of natural resources but also on the availability of relevant human knowledge. It is out of this recognition that the United Nations 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development acknowledges the place of education and gives the right of access to education prominence under Goal 4. Arguably, the right to education forms the basis for the realization of many other sustainable development goals especially those...

Climate change is a threat to food security. Wild-harvested food plants (WFPs) are important for the diets of millions of people and contribute to food security, especially in rural and low-income communities, but little is known about climate change risk to WFPs. Using species distribution models, we examined climate change risk to 1190 WFP species used by 19 native language groups in southern Africa. We project that 60% of species will experience an increase (40% a decrease) in range...

Abstract Background Below-normal availability of water for a considerable period of time induces occurrence of drought. This paper investigates the Spatio-temporal characteristics of meteorological drought under changing climate. The climate change was analyzed using delta based statistical downscaling approach of RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 in R software packages. The meteorological drought was assessed using the Reconnaissance Drought Index (RDI). Results The result of climate change projections...

Headline SOUTH AFRICA: Education protests raise snowball fears

Introduction: The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has necessitated the implementation of public health measures including social distancing, quarantine, and lockdown. Nigerian public universities have been closed since March 2020 after the viral outbreak. This study was carried out in order to investigate the psychological impact of COVID-19 on undergraduate students.
 Methods: The study was carried out among students of the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan. Study...

Mathematics has become an important and compulsory school subject in many countries of the world but it has been recognized by many researchers as causing panic and fear for many students and this has often made most of such students to fail the subject. This study therefore sought the effect of gender on the mathematics anxiety of senior secondary school students in Ogun West Senatorial District. The sample size for this study were 270 senior secondary school students 2 (SS2) who were...

INTRODUCTION: Robotics needs to be made simple to understand in order to serve as a direct introduction to programming.In this paper, we propose the Edu-Rover (an unmanned vehicle system) for teaching robotics, and other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) related subjects.OBJECTIVES: The aim of this project is to expose students to the applications of the theoretical knowledge learned in STEM subjects.METHODS: To determine the applicability of our apparatus, we...

Background. Sexual and reproductive health (SRH) communication is most likely to promote healthy sexual practices and to reduce risky sexual behavior among adolescents. Communication is the principal means for parents to transmit sexual values and knowledge to their children. Although there are few studies conducted on parent-adolescent communication, there is no study conducted in the town of Ambo. This study was aimed at assessing the level of parent-adolescent communication on SRH issues...

This paper aims to address the information gap on the influence of socio-demographic factors on access and utilization of Assistive Technology (AT) among children with disabilities in Malawi. Thus, it contributes towards the realization of the recommendations of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with disabilities and the development of a framework for creating an effective national AT policy. The paper used two statistically matched datasets, namely, the 2017 survey on Living...

Lowering desired family size is a necessary precondition for fertility declines in high-fertility settings. Although accumulated evidence links socio-economic developments to changing fertility desires, little research has disentangled the relative importance of key socio-economic determinants. Combining individual- and community-level data from Demographic and Health Surveys in 34 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, we compare the relative role of different socio-economic factors on...

Behaviour problems among students with visual disabilities are mentioned as a challenge confronting teachers. This study explores teachers’ experiences of behaviour problems and strategies used to mitigate such problems among students with visual disabilities in Ghana. In-depth interviews were conducted with 15 purposively selected teachers. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. The findings are discussed using a psychological theory, namely the biological theories and...

Abstract Learners at school can be subjected to pesticide exposures both from use in the schools and from nearby operations. Plantations de Haut Penja (PHP) is an agro-industrial plantation that uses pesticides to spray its bananas ( Musa spp ) using helicopters. This aerial spray couple with air drift of noxious particles exposes learners in nearby schools to acute and chronic effects. This paper sought to compare learners’ attitudes with regards to pesticide, in schools located closer to,...