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Students’ Use of Smartphones at a Historically Disadvantaged University
Get PDFAs technology becomes cheaper the potential for learning is greater, preparing and disseminating learning material through smartphones is likely to become popular. However, it was not clear whether students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, have the right equipment (smartphones) to support learning at a historically disadvantaged university. This study assesses smartphone ownership as a potential tool for enhancing students’ learning at a relatively resource-poor higher education (HE) environment in rural KwaZulu-Natal. Correspondence universities, such as ‘Unisa’ and examples worldwide in HE, use students’ smartphones for educational purposes. Primary data were collected from postgraduates and undergraduate students using a self-administered structured questionnaire for all faculties. The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) was employed to account for students’ perceived ease of use (EOU) and perceived usefulness (PU). The results revealed smartphone ownership and use was greater than the ownership and use of regular cellular phones. Regular cellular phone users commented on smartphone capabilities as enhancing learning
Religion or Ruse? African Jamaican Spiritual Practices and Police Deception in Canada
Get PDFrole in policing the illegal activities of Jamaicans in Ontario, where the majority of Caribbean immigrants in Canada have settled. Posing as spiritual advisors, police agents and undercover officers have convinced suspected criminals to divulge the details of their offenses as a component of rituals purportedly designed to protect the suspects against the spirits of their victims and guard against detection by the authorities. Canadian courts have consistently upheld the legality of these deceptions, finding that Obeah rituals fall outside the standards of protected spiritual interactions or confessions. These cases reveal the limitations of the recognition of African diaspora religions in Canada, and demonstrate that, in response to media allegations that Jamaican immigrants disproportionately commit violent crime, persons of Caribbean descent attempt to secure their acceptance in the global north by delegitimizing African derived faiths
Church as Hostile, Host or Home: Perspectives on the Experiences of African Migrants in South Africa
Get PDFHuman migration has been on the rise globally and it has fuelled xenophobia and growing intolerance towards migrants in the receiving communities. This article draws from data collected for a PhD thesis and highlights the experiences of African migrants in religious spaces and congregations in Johannesburg, South Africa. The PhD project this article draws from identified Christian religious identities as a form of belonging and explored models for providing care to migrants and refugees by appreciating their agency and ensuring that cross cultural and socio-religious encounters enrich the developmental agenda within host communities. I argue that instead of being hostile to African migrants, host congregations and communities should engage in mutually transformative mission with migrants and appreciate how migration encounters enrich human relations. They give birth to hybrid contextual theologies through the construction, or de-construction, of congregations by missio-ecclesiological and intercultural forces of migration that challenge their vocation and witness
Defining an African Vocabulary for the Exploration of Possibilities in Higher Education
Get PDFIn a review of Coetzee’s White Writing (1988) and Gordimer’s Essential Gesture (1988), Lewis Nkosi (1989) highlights fundamental deficits in South African literature. Owing to inadequate resources and statutory racial divides – instituted by apartheid – Nkosi (1989) responds to these deficits through what I interpret as a series of provocations, that posit an African Vocabulary.Using a narrative approach I suggest a rudimentary articulation of an African Vocabulary. I explore the negotiation of power, and ethics from an African ontological framework for the purposes of reimagining an inclusive higher education system that is decolonised. This treatise facilitates my conceptualisation of an African Vocabulary in a post-apartheid, decolonial higher education landscape in South Africa through revealing colonial attempts at the decimation of African ontologies.Through this contribution, I aim to articulate an African Vocabulary and trouble representations of African subjectivities as static and primitive. I therefore highlight and challenge sustained colonial descriptions of a gradual African epistemic framework. I frame the use of an African Vocabulary in the South African academy as an initial move towards substantive decolonisation
Interface between Constitutional Democracy and Traditional Mechanisms of Authority in Rural Communities of South Africa: Lessons from Maruleng
Get PDFThis Afrocentric article uses the Maruleng sub-district of Limpopo province as a test case to analyse and critique the intersection(s) between constitutional institutions of authority and traditional mechanisms of governance in South Africa. Methodologically, the author has relied heavily on critical discourse approach and conversations in their broadest form. The article’s main argument is that the co-existence of traditional leadership and municipal councils is inherently problematic. At the centre of the problematic nature of the co-existence of traditional leadership and municipal councils lie the discontinuities of the cultural values and practices of the Black communities in Maruleng sub-district. It is concluded that there is an urgent need for the desk of traditional leadership within the local Maruleng Municipality. It is also necessary to craft a space for municipal representation in the council of traditional authority. This desk and municipal representation in each other’s affairs would be instrumental in un-tangling the competition for leadership space and other challenges within and/or between the various traditional authorities and the local municipal council
A Holistic Approach towards Personal Transformation of Youth not in Employment, Education or Training
Get PDFThis article explores how young people experienced a holistic approach to personal transformation by participating in a three month residential pro-gramme for youth not in employment, education or training. The study deployed an ecological perspective that served to illuminate the influence of relationships and contexts on the development of youth. A phenomenological approach was used to understand young peoples’ perceptions and experiences of a holistic approach. The methodological framework leaned on narrative enquiry to explore the views of five youth respondents. The data was analysed using thematic content analysis. The findings illustrated that a holistic approach as one particular philosophical and developmental approach to personal transformation, has the potential to enhance the psychological capital of young people, facilitate connection with self and family and provide the impetus for them to remain on a positive developmental trajectory. As 7.5 million youth in South Africa are not in employment, education or training, a status with the propensity to foster disengagement and disconnection from self, family and social, economic, political and cultural activities, the findings offer hope that credible and innovative strategies do exist to disrupt the current NEET crisis
Predictions of Clinical Application of the Cardiac Dynamics in Monitoring Patients With Acute Cardiac Syndrome
Get PDFThe physical methodologies of probability and entropy, and Zipf-Mandelbrot law for quantitative evaluation of cardiac dynamics were applied simultaneously, in order to achieve a differentiation between normality and Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS). A blind study was conducted, taking Holter monitoring tests from 50 normal subjects and 50 people with ACS who developed Acute Myocardial Infarct (AMI) and Cardiogenic Shock (CS). The maximum and minimum heart rate for each hour was taken, and the number of beats at minimum 21 hours. Probability, entropy and proportions of consecutive pairs of heart rates in numerical attractors were calculated. Zipf-Mandelbrot law was applied to cardiac frequencies grouped in ranges of 15 beats/min finding the degree of complexity of each dynamic and establishing its mathematical diagnosis. It was demonstrated that physical methodologies can evaluate more specifically the ACS, AMI and CS, with values of sensitivity and specificity of 100% and Kappa of 1
Bridging the Gap of Skilled Surgeons in Low and Middle Income Countries Using ICT Based Tools : A Case Study in Super-Speciality Training
Get PDFIntroduction: Over the last two decades, advancement of super specialised surgical disciplines has shown improved health outcome, in particular quality and safety. Although medical technology has developed to meet diagnostics and therapeutic needs, there is a scarcity of trained human resources in advanced specialities in low and middle income countries (LMICs). Innovative methods are needed to educate and train people at their workplaces using collaborative technologies and networks. Methods: Over the last 15 years, two general surgeons in Cuttack have been telementored from Lucknow 1,163 km away, using collaborative technologies to develop Endocrine Surgery. This study reviews the last 11 years of the service which includes a clinical decision support system and treatment planning advice using real time videoconferencing. Results: Over the last 11 years, 199 endocrine surgeries per annum were performed with most being thyroid cases as compared with 119 surgeries per annum during the previous five years. Parathyroid and adrenal cases increased significantly during this period (p <0.001). Rates of temporary and permanent vocal cord palsy (1.7% and 0%), hypocalcaemia (5.9% and 1.1%) were comparable with high volume centres. Based on the quantum, safety and quality outcome of endocrine surgery the provincial government has approved creation of a super-speciality department of endocrine surgery in Cuttack. Conclusion: Sustained engagement using telementoring can transfer surgical skills to needy surgeons and enable them to match the expertise of mentors. This model can be replicated in other specialities in a cost effective way to develop specialised human resources for healthcare, in particular in LMICs
23rd Conference of the International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth and the 23rd Finnish National Conference on Telemedicine and eHealth. Helsinki - Stockholm - Helsinki 15th-17th March 2018
Get PDFThe relationship between school-leaving examinations and university entrance assessments: The case of the South African system
Get PDFMany higher education systems across the globe struggle with the challenges of low throughput rates and high
dropout rates. It is estimated that more than half of South African Higher Education students drop out before
completing their degree studies and only one in four students complete their undergraduate programmes in
regulation time. Access, success and completion rates continue to be racially skewed. The challenges of these
low throughput and high dropout rates along racial lines means that effective teaching and learning has to be a
major focus for the higher education sector. In addition, extended degree programmes, where degrees are
formally done over a longer period of time, have to be considered as part of the future higher education
landscape in South Africa. One difficulty is determining which students will benefit from an extended
programme. In South Africa there are two assessments of school-leavers that are pertinent to this difficulty.
The first is the national school leaving examination, the National Senior Certificate (NSC), which is a statutory
requirement for entry into Higher Education. The results of the NSC are norm-referenced (they yield an
estimate of the position of the tested individual learner in relation to her peers) and are often difficult to
interpret for the purposes of admission, placement and curriculum development. The second assessment is the
National Benchmark Tests (NBTs). The NBTs are criterion-referenced (they generate a statement about the
behaviour that can be expected of a person with a given score) and test students in three domains: Academic
Literacy, Quantitative Literacy and Mathematics. This paper investigates the empirical relationship between
the two assessments and argues that they should be seen as complementary in order to address the challenges
of placing students in appropriate programmes and creating effective teaching and learning environments