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Safe schools Africa: Ensuring the provision of safe infrastructure for school children on donor-financed road projects
Get PDFSub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has the world’s highest road traffic injury rates, and rates are increasing as the continent develops and mobilises. However, roads are a cornerstone of economic development, and so governments across the continent – supported by development partners – invest heavily in developing their road networks. No government or lending institution wants people – above all children, who are among the most vulnerable road users – to be injured or killed on the roads they finance and build. Making roads safe is not a controversial proposition. The challenge lies in changing the existing practices that allow high-risk roads to be built. This paper looks at a program, ‘Safe Schools Africa’, which seeks to address the challenge of ensuring that the existing road procurement, design, and construction systems and practices consider the specific road safety requirements of school children. The program ensures that provision is made to safeguard school children and other vulnerable road users in the design and construction of new and rehabilitated roads used by this group. Safe Schools Africa is operated and administered by the FIA Foundation and Amend. The FIA Foundation and Amend work together on advocacy and project identification, while Amend carries out the community engagement and technical engineering services and manages the logistics of project delivery. The paper will examine examples of the ongoing application of ‘Safe Schools Africa’ on donor-financed projects in Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zambia and share some lessons learnt to date
Prioritization of the barriers to integrated modular buildings (IMBs) in developing countries: Nigerian construction professionals’ perspectives
Get PDFIntegrated modular building (IMBs) enhance construction performance, quality, and productivity. However, in developing economies, adoption is impeded by challenges that hinder efficiency and sustainability. The study investigated and prioritized the barriers associated with IMBs through purposive sampling of experienced construction professionals in IMBs. Of the various statistical analyses, the fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE) indicated that perception-related barriers are the most significant barrier to IMBs, among other barriers, namely skill-related, cost-related, technical-related, and regulation-related. The study holds significant implications for construction stakeholders to intensify efforts in addressing the identified barriers and raising awareness to facilitate more IMBs adoption. The study underscores the importance of tailored strategies aligned with these priorities to effectively address these barriers. Furthermore, enhancing awareness and implementing targeted interventions are crucial steps towards promoting IMBs and advancing sustainability in the construction sector. Additionally, the prioritization of the barriers gives a logical order of required actions for construction stakeholders
Decolonisation and Downshift-Knowledge Reproduction in Africa
Get PDFColonialism established a system of racial oppression, both mentally and physically, by impeding pre-colonial African education, which was originally intended to reflect the realities of pre-colonial African societies. Before the colonial administration, Africans were already developed people with different educations for different age groups, making them functional and inclusive within the larger political sphere. Decolonisation only reflects a shift in political power and the withdrawal of colonialists from African territories, but it has not resulted in any fundamental shift in the mentality of political leaders and nation-building in the decolonised nations. The education curriculum left behind by colonial governments was designed to make African nations economically and technologically dependent on developed nations. Such a pattern of education was not geared toward African technological development, but rather conditioned African nations to be consumers rather than producers, with the resulting loss of initiative among the Africans. The curriculum is insidious in terms of principles and implementation across all levels of educational institutions, slowly destroying the economies of African nations that were once ahead of European nations during the pre-colonial epoch. Instead of accelerating the socio-economic development of decolonised African nations, the curriculum based on Western principles and ideas further subjugates African economies to imperialist influence and hegemony through the instrumentality of international financial institutions, which frequently dictate exploitative asymmetric relationships between the developed and developing African nations. African nations must therefore look inward for an African-oriented and culturally appropriate educational curriculum to meet the demand for socioeconomic advancement and growth
A Critical Review of Medemer from Ideological Perspectives
No full textMedemer, both as a book and as an idea, is trapped between two extremes: admiration and rejection. Writers from both ends offer their thoughts, criticisms, and reviews of Medemer. The aim of this article is to analyze Medemer from an ideological perspective. Raising some political and policy questions about Medemer’s application is also the aim of this article. This article used a qualitative research approach and comparative and critical research methods. Secondary sources of data were used to compare Medemer with various political ideologies. Ideologically, Medemer meets the three criteria (critics of the present order, vision of the future society, and theory of change). Medemer is a “blended ideology” that combines concepts, principles, and ideas from liberalism, socialism, conservatism, and fascism. Furthermore, Medemer ideology attempted to combine concepts from opposing political ideologies and proposed it as a solution to Ethiopia’s complex sociopolitical and economic problems. Despite the government’s claim that Medemer is Ethiopia’s redeemer, several political questions remain unanswered given the country’s current situation. Therefore, the country’s complicated sociopolitical and economic problems under the regime of the Prosperity Party challenged the applicability of Medemer. Is Medemer thus the sole (or perhaps the only) instrument, policy framework, ideology, and mechanism for resolving Ethiopia’s multiple, dynamic, and complex socio-political problems? These remain a point of contention among academics and politicians.Medemer, not only as a book but also as an idea, is trapped between two extremes: extreme admiration and utter rejection. Writers from both ends of the political spectrum offer their opinions, criticisms, and reviews depending on their viewpoints. The purpose of this article is to provide a critical examination of Medemer from an ideological perspective. Hence, secondary sources of data were used to get information. It used a comparative method to show a relationship between Medemer and some carefully selected political ideologies. From an ideological point of view, Medemer satisfies the three features of ideology (critics of the present order, vision of the future society, and theory of change). Hence, there is no doubt whether Medemer is an ideology. Furthermore, Medemer attempted to merge some concepts from conflicting political ideologies and proposed it as a solution to the country\u27s long and complicated socio-political and economic problems. Therefore, the article examined the Ideology of Medemer and posited questions about its applicability using the critical method. Although the government claimed Medemer as a redeemer of Ethiopia, various political questions remain unanswered considering the country\u27s existing circumstances. These questions raise challenges to Medemer\u27s applicability in Ethiopia\u27s multi-faceted difficulties, particularly identity politics/problems. The article found that the applicability of Medemer is still facing challenges by the complicated socio-political and economic issues that the country faces under the government of the prosperity party
Centre-periphery circulation patterns in Ghana’s print media landscape: exploring the underlying determinants
No full textAfter 202 years (1822‒2024) of its inception in the then Gold Coast, now Ghana, and witnessing an unprecedented upsurge in publication since 1992, the circulation of print media appears unevenly distributed between the centre (capital) and the peripheries. Since there are not enough studies that explore the circulation of print media under Ghana’s fourth republic to show its circulation patterns, this article analyses print distribution figures and views sourced from newspaper firms to examine the situation within the participatory communication and the political economy of the media frameworks. It uncovers that a few newspaper firms have regional offices but do not print in those locations. They function only as bulk distribution and administrative centres that gather news to feed their headquarters in the capital. Ghana’s print industry operates a centre-periphery production and distribution framework. Furthermore, the study unveils that four factors contribute to newspaper concentration in urban centres, namely ownership tendencies, revenue motives, skilled labour availability and seat of government, and urban media credibility. Thus, Ghana experiences wide rural‒urban print disparities which retard timely information sourcing, consensus building and participatory development communication. The findings from the study have implications for Africa
Student experiences of photovoice as a medium to inform decolonisation of the Health Sciences curriculum
No full textDecolonisation of curricula embeds the African realities into teaching. Within the Health Sciences, learning, which is responsive to community health needs, is required. This study used photovoice, a student participatory teaching method, where students (n=96) engaged with local communities, capturing photographs of environmental factors involved in causing disease. Photographic information of local adverse environmental conditions was gathered, linking these to disease causation within local communities. This observation and analysis of the South African circumstances, particularly those of marginalized communities, emphasized local knowledge, which prepared students to work within their local and national contexts. Students were prepared to be responsive to the needs of the people in their communities. This teaching pedagogy laid the foundation for lifelong learning as students were able to deal with real-life challenges while applying a new technology in the field of education. This will enable them to cope with changing aspects in health during their careers. Such changes are inevitable as population demographics and environments evolve with time. This alternate pedagogy, using photovoice, promoted decolonisation of the curriculum and has the potential to produce graduates who are reactive to local requirements of the community
Teaching and learning for sustainable futures: Reclaiming, collaboration and empathy
Get PDFIntroducing community engagement to my annual class of Visual Art honours students has become increasingly challenging. There is a healthy resistance to the perception of ‘cultural tourism’, and students are sensitive to the idea of entering a community as voyeurs with the perception of privileged “saviours”. I offer a particular example of an emerging annual exchange with the African Reclaimers Organisation (ARO), who have partnered with the University of Johannesburg (UJ) in a range of projects that can add value to upcycling of collected and sorted waste products. The pervasive news of corruption, violence, and rolling blackouts undermines well-being and increasingly perpetuates despair, apathy, or distraction. In this climate, a question of response in an educational environment is pertinent. How does one teach and learn about sustainable futures? How can educators foster empathy, agency, and activism among students? This article draws on ecology activist and scholar Dylan McGarry’s expanded concept of transgressive social learning using skills transfer through an apprenticeship, which is helpful in framing a model of teaching and learning based on social exchange. Including selected student reflections, the paper considers methods and practices that model ways to develop various forms of personal and social agency through exploring empathetic encounters
Convoluted Pentecost? An Analysis of Akan Indigenous Worldviews in Ghanaian Pentecostal-Charismatic Praxes
Get PDFIn this paper, I argue that the reason for the success and the failure of Pentecostalism on the African continent, particularly in Ghana, is because of its interaction with the Akan indigenous cosmology. A critical examination of this on-going phenomenon begs the question as to whether this interaction between Akan indigenous and Pentecostal worldviews could be convoluted, considering the myriads of practices that take place in churches identified with this strand of Christianity? There is also a critical examination of the sociological posture of Pentecostal-Charismatic churches arising from its praxes and the needed socio-theological response to correct them
New Imaginations of Youth Agency: Boko Haram and the Innovative Gospel of Terror in Nigeria
Get PDFThe study is an empirical examination of the credentials of the Boko Haram as an innovative religious expression driven by socio economic marginalization in the Northeast of Nigeria. It discovered that the Boko Haram is a youth driven sect which, even though embodying the rich history of Islamic fundamentalism in the North of Nigeria, has manifested innovative strategies for confronting the decadent Nigerian state and its political class. Prominent in this case is the ideology of takfir which has led the sect to kill fellow Muslims. The group has also pioneered the ‘gendering’ of Islamic fundamentalism through the use of women as active collaborators and suicide bombers in its later history. Strangely enough, the study discovered an ambivalence regarding the perception of the legitimacy of the sect with a good number of respondents seeing the group as Islamic both in its messages and methods. In conclusion, the study discovered that the Boko Haram has raised salient questions about the political economy of Nigeria that need addressing if resurgence of such conflicts is to be averted. Also, while de-radicalization came up as a means of tackling Islamic fundamentalism in Nigeria, there is need for a nuanced approach that builds on credibility and acceptance of those driving the programme
The Role of Religious and Traditional Beliefs on Botswana Medical Practitioners’ Health Provision Behaviours: Some Highlights from a Recent Study
Get PDFReligious and traditional belief systems have a bearing on health care provision and vice versa. Faith healing is a crucial component of health care provision. Holistic care should be intertwined within both medical practice and religious and traditional belief systems in order to attain optimal patient care. Using qualitative methodology, this study explores the role of religious and traditional beliefs on medical practitioners’ health provision behaviours. Medical professionals who informed the health provision behaviour were purposively sampled from medical facilities. The results from the study emphasize that a peoples’ religious belief system is a crucial component of delivery of health care. The religious beliefs of the medical practitioner play an important role in optimising patient care. The healing power of science needs to be linked to the dynamics of curing and caring that is derived from religious and traditional contexts. Further research related to religionmedicine interrelationships is recommended