Unisa Press Journals (University of South Africa)
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Navigating Source Code Plagiarism Challenges: Strategies to Mitigate the Impact of COVID-19 Disruptions : Reintegration after Disruption
No full textIn South Africa, the immediate response to the COVID-19 pandemic was a hard lockdown, which shocked the educational community. The disruption to teaching and learning was particularly profound for first-year computing students, especially those with disadvantaged backgrounds. One of the biggest impacts of emergency remote teaching and learning was on assessment, which is widely regarded as the driving force of learning, particularly in the programming context. Source code plagiarism emerged as a prevalent practice during the pandemic due to the challenges students face, including infrastructure limitations, learning in isolation, and the opportunities presented by online continuous assessment practices. Through an empirical study, the authors, as academics, investigated the occurrence of source code plagiarism during the COVID-19 lockdown period, along with the transition required to adjust to a post-COVID setting. The different theories that drive behaviour and decision-making in this context are analysed, and qualitative data is collected using open-ended questionnaires. Findings yield vital recommendations for the mitigation of source code plagiarism. Reflecting on the findings suggests that engaging students on source code plagiarism can assist in establishing shared norms, playing a positive role in reducing source code plagiarism. This is necessary, especially with the recent introduction of artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT, which may take source code plagiarism to a new level. Academics face long-term challenges and exciting opportunities in addressing source code plagiarism issues in the post-COVID context of integrating online and face-to-face modalities
Social Grants and Poverty Reduction in the Resource-Poor Community of Doornkop, Soweto, South Africa
No full textOver 1.5% of the global gross domestic product (GDP) is spent on social protection in developing and transition countries. The South African government supports an increasing number of its citizens with reliable and predictable monthly social grants to mitigate high levels of poverty and unemployment in resource-poor communities. Although the literature has shown the positive impact of the intervention on nutrition, schooling, women’s empowerment, access to services, and search for employment, the relationship between social grants, agency and poverty reduction in resource-poor communities is yet to receive adequate research attention. Considering the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 1: No poverty, as well as the expected role of social grants, this study aimed to explore how the receipt of social grants contributes to beneficiaries’ agency towards poverty reduction in the resource-poor community of Doornkop, Soweto, South Africa. A qualitative research methodology was used to understand the impact of social grants and found that receipt thereof created new economic opportunities, empowered individuals, and boosted the overall economic status of the community
Challenges Faced by Social Workers Rendering Foster Care Services in the John Taolo Gaetsewe District, Northern Cape Province
No full textFoster care services are in high demand in South Africa because of the significant number of children in need of care. Reasons for this include the death of biological parents, abuse, neglect, incarceration of parents, parents abandoning their children, and even disappearance of parents. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has worsened this situation. The demand for foster care is putting strain on the delivery of social work services to this vulnerable group. Social workers tasked with implementing the foster care process experience operational impediments and emotional strain, creating an implementation challenge. In examining these challenges, the ecological perspective provides a suitable theoretical framework. This qualitative research study is underpinned by an exploratory design and semi-structured interviews have been conducted to gather primary data. Eight participants have been purposively selected, and the data has been analysed using thematic analysis. Findings suggest that the challenges social workers face fall into three categories: operational obstacles, emotional challenges, and non-adherence to foster care values and principles. Policies and practices are recommended to address the identified challenges to ensure that social workers are empowered to implement foster care services that are child-centred and needs-based
The Perils of Service Provision in Unsafe Areas: Providing Continuing Services to Youth during Gang Violence in the Cape Flats, South Africa
No full textYouth involvement in criminal gangs is rife in a particular area of Cape Town, the capital city of Western Cape, South Africa, known as the Cape Flats. But the Cape Flats is not unique and the youth’s susceptibility to join these gangs cuts across cultures and societies. Wherever there is marginalisation and disadvantage, social issues emerge that are difficult to combat because of systemic and structural barriers. Community workers and those who live in these areas are often at their wits end trying to combat the allure that gang membership holds for their teenage children. This article reports on a study that was part of a larger research study conducted between 2016–2018 by social work students at a university situated in the area. The article reflects the findings of the 2018 study that focused on the perceptions and experiences of those who work or provide services in the area. The aim of the study was to explore the participants’ experiences of gang violence during service provision and their opinions about ways to address their concerns. A qualitative approach, utilising an intervention mapping design was used. Individual interviews were conducted with 325 service providers on the Cape Flats. Two main themes emerged from thematic data analysis, namely, impact on service providers and service delivery, and suggested interventions and solutions. The implications of the findings are that the increasing violence has severe consequences on service provision in communities and is disruptive and traumatising to everybody involved
Barriers Impeding the Contribution of Indigenous Knowledge to Rural Development in Mabheleni, South Africa
No full textIndigenous knowledge is increasingly recognised as a critical resource in rural development practice in many African countries, South Africa included. However, the use and contribution of indigenous knowledge in the development of rural communities in South Africa is inhibited by numerous factors. Drawing from the lens of deliberative democracy, this article reports on a study that explored the barriers impeding the contribution of indigenous knowledge towards rural development in Mabheleni. This deep rural and underdeveloped community falls under the Umzumbe Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. This study used a qualitative approach. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 participants and one focus group discussion with 10 participants in Mabheleni. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. The study findings indicated that lack of recognition of indigenous knowledge itself in development practice, the use of a top-down approach by government officials, and barriers to community participation impede the potential contribution of indigenous knowledge to rural development. Therefore, the study recommends a bottom-up approach to rural development practice
Social Auxiliary Workers as the “Cinderellas” of Supervision: The Case of John Taolo Gaetsewe District, Northern Cape Province
No full textThe supervision of social auxiliary workers has received little attention, both in research and supervision practice. Social auxiliary workers are trained and qualified to support the services of qualified social workers. Yet, despite their importance in social welfare service delivery, social auxiliary workers are seen as the stepchild to social workers and are often neglected in terms of receiving supervision for their professional duties. This article explores how social auxiliary workers experience supervision to guide their daily activities. Although there are a few studies on the supervision experiences of social auxiliary workers in South Africa, there are no previous studies focused on the Northern Cape province. This article is based on a qualitative study that used an exploratory and descriptive research design. Semi-structured interviews were used to gather data from six social auxiliary workers in the John Taolo Gaetsewe District of the Northern Cape. Using Tesch’s eight steps of analysis, the findings reveal the inconsistent use of the role and function of supervision in developing the capacity and training of social auxiliary workers and the implications of ineffective supervision. A key recommendation is that social auxiliary workers should have mandatory, structured and supportive supervision to uphold the professional purpose of employing social auxiliary workers in the context of social service delivery to vulnerable populations
Relationship between Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Shona Folktales
No full textThis article discusses the connection between Abraham Maslow’s psychological theory of human motivation and Shona folktales. The objective is to outline how folktales facilitate Maslow’s hierarchy. The theory provides the five-tier hierarchy of needs without indicating how to achieve the levels. The researchers deploy a textual analysis of folktales to indicate how these levels are achieved. Five stories, “Zindere” (The lonely man), “Ushamwari hwaTsuro naKamba” (The hare and tortoise’s friendship), and “Rungano rwaTsuro nedzimwe mhuka” (The story of hare and other animals) from George Fortune’s Ngano Volume 1 (1973) and “Mwanasikana nevabereki vake” (The girl and her parents) and “Vasikana nevakomana Shumba” (The girls and the boys who turned into lions) by Aaron Hodza (1983) are analysed. These folktales are fundamental in providing motivation for survival. The study is essential in quizzing the validity of adopting Western physiological theories in Shona communities
Performance of Women-led Political Parties in Lesotho’s 2022 National Elections
No full textSince the dawn of multi-party democracy in Lesotho in 1993, few political parties have been formed and led by women, and they are not doing well. The main political parties lack the political will and commitment to nominate women as leaders. In the elections of 7 October 2022, none of the main political parties were led by women and none of them won a single constituency. While many women-led parties could not make it into parliament, a few women leaders got into parliament through Proportional Representation (PR). Four women-led political parties contested the election, all of them performing dismally. It is important to explore why women-led political parties did not perform well, as Lesotho has signed and ratified international protocols on women’s empowerment and equality in politics, among others, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution 1325, the African Union (AU) Maputo Protocol, and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) protocol on gender and development. All these urge member states to ensure meaningful participation of women in politics and elections, specifically as leaders. We assess the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 5) on gender equality and women empowerment to measure the progress Lesotho has made and the challenges yet to be addressed. This article explores factors that contributed to this poor performance and analyses the reasons for the poor performance by reviewing relevant documents regarding the performance of women-led political parties in Lesotho’s 2022 national elections
Flags, Verdicts and Texts: Dissident Narratives and Literary Mandates for Re-Writing Empire
No full textResearchers theorising the intersection and intertextuality between literature and law have explored and analysed democracy, governance, and trust from diverse analytical approaches. Political and legal structures are undergoing polycrises and governance is assailed by wicked policy problems, while democratic norms and legitimacy are eroded. Trust—in all its elasticity—is increasingly polarised among groups and linked to ethnic, cultural, and place-based identities and resentments. Past and present experiences in the lace of memory show that racial categories have persisted into the postcolonial chronos, and we need to question what this means for the rhizome of democracy. New ideas and identities challenge how democracy can represent diverse groups and interests, emphasising the nourishing and symbiotic relationships between literature and law within the context of decolonising notions of global-glocal knowledge economies. Governance and legal architecture are held hostage by powerful interest groups, and axiomatic aspirations to kairos and trust in the fair distribution of wealth and resources for the institutionalisation of democracy have been enfeebled. New forms of democratic participation are emerging which challenge the concepts and premises of choice and plurality. Repeated pressures to understand major crises such as criminal and gendered violence where geopolitical instabilities weaken trust in the capacity of democratic processes have not provided acceptable and socially just verdicts. If external pressures on democratic institutions are growing, criticisms against forms of poor governance (e.g., corruption, presidential personalisation of the state, short-termism, polarisation) are also increasingly made against legal and political institutions. New expressions of distrust in flags and resistance against legal, cultural, and economic powers are immanent in literary texts. This article uses Native Son, Mating Birds, and The Trial of Dedan Kimathi to address the following question: What are the pre-requisites and co-requisites for democracy and socially just governance to flourish in legal and literary situations of heightened economic marginalisation, extreme cultural oppressions, and diminishing political legitimacy? The nexus and intersectionality between legal and literary textual structures allow for an analysis of the role and impact of social, cultural, political, and juridical reformulations in the three selected texts. I argue that the (counter)story, as interdisciplinary method, is thus tasked (and suffused) with immense possibilities
A Decolonial Reading of Herero/Nama Genocide Novels of Namibia: Literature as Archive
No full text
The Herero/Nama Genocide marks a painful but forgotten period in the history of Namibia. Six novels, a memoir, and two collections of survivor narratives about this period present the history of genocide. This paper examines the first four novels, Mama Namibia (2016) by Marie Serebrov, The Scattering (2018) by Lauri Kubuitsele, The Lie of the Land by Jasper Utley, and The Weeping Graves of Our Ancestors by Rukee Tjingaete to extend the colonial archive by the inclusion of imaginative and historical narratives for knowledge production around genocide. Using the decolonial approach, I identify the loci of enunciation to throw light on the narratives of genocide. I am not interested in the literary merit of the novels, rather, my main submission is that all four are to be read contrapuntally with other historical documents to gain a greater understanding of the colonial violence and issues around it. There is a need to balance or use historical and literary sources to reveal alternative genocide narratives.