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Abstract Early childhood care and education is an important stage in preparing children for primary schooling. Research indicates that participation in this phase has beneficial effects on later schooling particularly at the primary school level. Early diagnosis of special educational needs and intervention are essential in this stage if a child is to effectively function at primary school level and other later cycles. Unfortunately the sector is beset with a number of problems such as poor...

This study addresses educational reform in Ghana with reference to the junior secondary schooling. The empirical data on junior secondary teachers and pupils used here is taken from a larger case study of the junior secondary school innovation in Ghana. This offers some new perspectives on the realities of Ghanaian junior secondary schooling, which illustrates some of the workings and consequences of the vocationalized curriculum policy that has been adopted. The study analyses how the...

Aims: To evaluate the World Health Organization Prevention of Blindness and Deafness 20-item Visual Functioning Questionnaire (WHO/PBD VF20), a vision-related quality of life scale, and to describe the relationship between cataract visual impairment and vision-and generic health-related quality of life, in people >50 years of age in Nakuru district, Kenya.Methods: The WHO/PBD VF20 was pilot tested and modified.196 patients with visual impairment from cataract and 128 population-based...

The curriculum of the Life Orientation (LO ) learning area forms an excellent basis for equipping learners to respond positively to social demands, assume responsibilities, and optimize their life chances. I report on a qualitative study that focused on the extent to which schools and LO teachers succeeded in achieving the outcomes of the programmes. Teachers' views regarding their training and skills in this area were investigated and factors that determined successful implementation were...

Abstract Background: Tete Province, Mozambique has experienced chronic food insecurity and a dramatic fall in livestock numbers due to the cyclic problems characterized by the floods in 2000 and severe droughts in 2002 and 2003. The Province has been a beneficiary of emergency relief programs, which have assisted >22% of the population. However, these programs were not based on sound epidemiological data, and they have not established baseline data against which to assess the impact of...

To present the results of a research project on 6 heavy metals (Cd, Cu, Zn, Pb, Hg, and Cr) at 30 Fadama fields scattered around Kano.Following a reconnaissance conducted, 30 representative Fadama lands being irrigated with wastewater were selected from zones of the city under residential, industrial, commercial, and mixed but largely residential landuses. Five additional Fadama lands not being irrigated with wastewater were selected to serve as control. Using grid sampling procedure, soil...

On 12 th October 1992 the Cairo city in Egypt was hit by an earthquake with a magnitude of mb=5.8. This earthquake occurred at Dahshour area, 35 km southwest of Cairo. Monitoring of recent crustal movement by the Global Positioning System (GPS) is carried out during the period 1999-2003 in the epicentre area. The tectonics as well as seismotectonics of Dahshour area is investigated. Three seismogenic faults that trend E-W, NW-SE and NE-SW affect the area. A11 these faults are nonnal faults;...

One of the intractable aspects of the so-called achievement gap between Black and White students lies in our failure to identify viable ways to increase science achievement and participation among African American students living in our inner cities. However, there has been little research that attempts to understand how the social and cultural experiences of these African American students affect what happens in science classrooms. Using lenses from cultural sociology, the research...

Peer nomination procedures were used to explore the development of academic achievement values and their relation to perceptions of barriers to opportunity. A total of 615 boys and girls across 3 grade levels (2nd, 4th, 7th) and 2 ethnic groups (African American, Latino) nominated peers who they admired, respected, and wanted to be like. Nominations were summed to create a value index. Girls in both ethnic groups and across grade levels were more likely to nominate high- or average-achieving...

Abstract Devastating eruptions occurred at Manam, Papua New Guinea, from October 2004 to January 2005. An unprecedented set of pilot reports were obtained; ground-, air-, and satellite-observed eruption heights differed greatly. Satellite postanalysis and satellite CO2 slicing techniques give consistent heights. The climactic eruption, on 27 January 2005, reached 21–24 km MSL; four other eruptions reached 16.5–19 km. Tracking of these ice-rich clouds was done by monitoring strong “ice”...

The changes in post-apartheid South Africa have been accompanied by considerable changes in the education system. The most notable include desegregation of schools, development of a National Qualifications Framework, adoption of new language policies for education, and introduction of outcomes-based curricula. However entrenched assessment practices appear to be hampering the efforts to transform school education. An analysis of the assessment practices of three Grade 4 educators in...

Access to water and water availability remains a key factor in ensuring the sustainability of development in Southern Africa. The need for guidelines to improve management of this valuable resource, and to regulate pollutant discharge, is therefore of national interest. A new and growing threat to our natural water resources is non-point source (NPS) pollution. The important distinction between point pollution and NPS pollution is that the latter is difficult to identify and the entry point...

This paper discusses an attempt to establish community literacy procedures in an Eastern Cape community school. The school hosts the Additive Bilingual Education (ABLE) project, a cooperation between UK and South African universities and the school trust. The community literacy strand of the project encourages family members to contribute oral texts in Xhosa to the school (for example, ntsomi or traditional stories, biographies and procedural texts such as recipes). These are then turned...

A year ago, Fatouma would watch other children run to school while she stayed behind to care for her younger brothers and sisters. But a mere $34 per year helped the shy eight-year-old Senegalese girl take her place among students in the Tambacounda region in the eastern part of the country. Poor children are enrolling and staying in school, enticed by the daily meals they receive.

Abstract Many donors have come to view selectivity in aid allocation—particularly towards countries with good governance—as the key for improving aid effectiveness. This position draws support from research according to which the success of policy reforms depends exclusively on domestic political economy factors. This finding has recently been questioned, however. This paper makes an original contribution to the literature with its attempt to identify the determinants of compliance with...

The contribution of social work education to the professional capacity development of police officers commenced in 1974 when the Diploma in Police Studies was introduced at the University of Papua New Guinea under the Social Work Programme. In 2001, a study was conducted to assess the impact of social work education on police officers.  The study focused only on those police officers that were still employed by the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary. The information was collected through...