Kabale University Interdisciplinary Research Journal (KURJ)
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Economic growth and foreign direct investment in Africa: the mediating role of state fragility and natural resources
Get PDFUsing data from 43 African countries from 2000-2018, the study employed the Dynamic System GMM approach to examine the moderating effect of state fragility and natural resources on the FDI–economic growth nexus. The study found that FDI does not affect Africa's economic growth directly or indirectly after interacting with FDI with state fragility and natural resources. The insignificant impact of FDI on economic growth in Africa may be because for FDI to promote economic growth, some necessary factors, such as institutional development and the state of the economy, must be developed to a certain level high enough for the effect to be experienced. Given that African countries are fragile with low levels of institutional development, the FDI-Growth nexus is insignificant. The study recommends that African countries establish stable economies and develop their institutions to benefit from FDI inflows
Application of artificial intelligence in e-governance: a comparative study of supervised machine learning and ensemble learning algorithms on crime prediction
Get PDFIn the developing world, the daily activities of humans’ social, political and economic life make it vital and easy to encounter the phenomenon of crime. Crime is an unnecessary evil in society and for any economic, social and political activities to run smoothly, criminal offenses must be completely eliminated from society. Advancement in information and communications technology enables law enforcement agencies to collect a huge amount of crime data, and the data collected by these organizaions have been doubling every two years. It has been found out that only 17% of the collected crime data is used in their operations today and several studies have noted that Law Enforcement Agencies are data rich but information poor. Machine learning, a subfield of artificial intelligence, has been used by government agencies in developed countries in different operations like face recognition, computer forensics, image and video analysis to identify criminals and crime predictions. It is therefore time for developing countries to leverage such technologies in order to reduce crimes. Therefore, this study proposes the application of supervised machine learning techniques in the prediction of crimes basing on the past crime data. During this study, we used open-source crime data from the UCI Machine learning repository to train and validate our algorithms. The performance of supervised machine learning and ensemble learning algorithms was done using crime data. The supervised machine learning algorithms used include K-Nearest Neighbour (KNN), decision tree classifier (CART), Naïve Bayes (NB) and Support vector machine (SVM). The ensemble learning algorithms used include AdaBoost (AD), Gradient Boosting Classifier (GBM), Random Forest (RF) and Extra Trees (ET). We used an accuracy metric to measure the performance of the algorithms. Python 3 was used in all the experiments using windows 10 laptop with 8GB RAM and 2.0GHZ processor. The performance of the supervised machine learning algorithms using the original datasets includes 60.33%, 56.24%, 57.01% and 59.06% for KNN, CART, NB, and SVM respectively. The performance of ensemble learning algorithms using the original datasets includes 58.58%, 59.81%, 55.23% and 55.74% for AD, GBM, RF and ET respectively. Experimental results revealed that KNN generally performed better when compared to the rest of the algorithms. we then developed a crime prediction model based on KNN and its prediction accuracy was 66% on our test dataset. The use of Artificial Intelligence has the potential to ameliorate several existing structural inefficiencies in the discharge of governmental functions. Machine learning, a subfield of artificial intelligence, has been used by government agencies in developed countries in crime analysis and predictions. It is therefore time for developing countries to leverage such technologies in order to reduce crimes
Social administration and societal transformation in Uganda today
Get PDFAny attempt to divorce Social Administrators from mainstream societal arrangements aimed at causing societal transformation and development is a futile one. This is due to the fact that social administrators have historically been instrumental in working with governments around the world to ensure that societal needs at different levels are addressed to propel development. Societal transformation requires concerted efforts and this is exactly why governments have to embrace the role played Social Administrators in societal development. The researcher employed a purely critical qualitative approach in which desk research methodology was relied upon. As such secondary data was used and this data was obtained mainly from scholarly and published research articles surrounding Social administration, Social welfare, and other crucial published reports, with matters of the role of social administrators in societal transformation in Uganda today under scrutiny in which even the challenges incapacitating the social administrators from playing their roles well were also analyzed. Critical content analysis was employed in examining the roles of social administrators in Uganda and also the challenges that they face. Validity and reliability were guaranteed by paying much attention to critical conceptual clarity and interpretative rigor. In this paper I reviewed the genesis, the roles of Social Administrators, the challenges that hamper the activities the discipline of Social Administration drawing substantiations from the Ugandan experience. Connectedly, based on literature review, I further concluded that transforming the society is a holistic process which should be done involving all the relevant stakeholders at different levels especially in the community as this would be in position cause for ownership of all projects that could be set up to help the people improve their conditions of living. I also came up with some recommendations which included; the central government should strengthen the monitoring and evaluation department, integrating technology into mainstream societal development projects, continuously empowering local people and embracing the sustainable development strategies
Effects of accessibility and adequacy of technical vocational education and training equipment on acquisition of employable skills in Uganda. A case of Uganda Technical College - Elgon
Get PDFThe Government of Uganda has continued to establish and equip public Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Institutions in the country. However, despite the initiatives, learners have continued to join the industry claimed to have inadequate employable skills. This pauses a question whether the equipment utilized are adequate, accessed by learners to acquire employable skills. This paper therefore examined the access and adequacy of TVET equipment in Technical Colleges. A descriptive survey design utilizing quantitative and qualitative approach of research was conducted, a sample size of 100 learners and 5 instructors were selected. A simple random sampling technique to choose learners responded the questionnaires and purposive selection of instructors for focus group discussions. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences was used to run descriptive analyses, ordinal regressions and frequency distribution. Findings on adequacy show that 77% of the learners are availed equipment not relevant to their programme and spend little time practicing on the equipment. In conclusion, TVET equipment were inadequate with limited time spent on practicum, and recommended that Government institutions should undergo into memorandum of understanding with the industry to enable learners adequately access practical experience on modern equipment and relevant to their training
Perspectives of curriculum regulatory authorities on adopting a decolonized curriculum in Uganda: a case of National Curriculum Development Center (NCDC)
Get PDFThe ongoing African renaissance and the decolonization imperatives are inviting Africans to reconsider the role of Africa ways of knowing as a way of decolonizing curriculum. Like other countries in Africa, Uganda needs an education that uses local experiences, realities, values and languages to create a lifelong impact on the masses. The ongoing colonial education was aimed at training low and middle level workers for government and missionary service and therefore the skills and competences promoted by such an education do not match with those required by contemporary demands. This explains why despite the increasing number of universities and tertiary institutions, and having many graduates (at least 400,000 per annum) Kamuhanda J(2022), the productivity of the nation in many sectors is still low. It is not clear if Uganda’s education regulatory authorities like NCDC, NCHE, ESA support and therefore consider a move towards a home grown / endogenous / decolonized curriculum. Hence, the study aimed at finding the perspectives of NCDC’s technical staff on curriculum transformation with in a decolonized framework. The study used questionnaires and review of NCDC’s literature to find views of technical staff (curriculum specialists) at NCDC
Assessing the effectiveness of tools used for lecturer and course evaluation in institutions of higher learning: a case study from Ugandan universities
Get PDFBlended learning, a pedagogical method integrating face-to-face and online instructions methodologies, has been identified as a strategic educational approach since its inception in the late 1990s. Moreover, its adoption especially in developing countries such as Uganda was widely recognized during the COVID-19 pandemic’s acceleration of digital learning adoption. However, this adoption has paused many challenges in evaluating learning content, teaching methodologies, and their impact on student progress. This study therefore, explores the critical role of quality assurance in higher education, focusing on the assessment of lecturer performance and course content. Apparently, paper-based mode of evaluation is the commonly used method in Ugandan universities, posing issues of privacy, delayed analytics, and ever-increasing operational costs. To address these challenges, this research proposes the development of an automated assessment system, informed by a benchmarking study across four universities. By adopting insights from existing evaluation practices, the proposed system aims to enhance the efficiency, accuracy, and students’ privacy during lecturer and course assessment. The implementation of this automated system at Kabale University promises to streamline evaluation process, ultimately enhancing teaching quality and academic outcomes
The effects of tax administration on revenue collection in Uganda: the role of self-assessment system
Get PDFThis research examines the impact of tax administration, with a focus on the self-assessment system (SAS), on revenue collection in Uganda. Utilizing data collected from 350 commercial enterprises through questionnaires, the study employs AMOS PLS-SEM for data analysis. The findings reveal that the SAS significantly enhances revenue collection by empowering taxpayers to self-report and calculate their tax liabilities, contingent upon adequate tax knowledge and awareness. The study also identifies government spending and tax collection methods as positive moderators in the relationship between SAS and revenue collection, highlighting the importance of government efficiency and transparency in fostering tax compliance. Despite the positive impact of compliance audits on revenue performance, the effectiveness of tax audits varies across different contexts, necessitating tailored approaches. The research concludes that a comprehensive strategy integrating tax education, transparent government spending, and strategic compliance audits is essential for optimizing revenue collection and supporting sustainable economic development in Uganda. Future research should explore the long-term effects of these interventions and consider the role of digitalization and socio-cultural factors in shaping tax compliance behavior
The socio-economic impact of Covid-19 on refugees and host community’s livelihoods in south western Uganda: a case of Nakivale refugee settlement
Get PDFThis study examined the way the imposition of total lockdown during the Covid-19 epidemic affected the socio-economic livelihoods of refugees and host community’s at Nakivale refugee settlement in South Western Uganda. This study worked towards answering the following questions; to what extent did Covid-19 affect refugees and host community’s livelihood status at Nakivale refugee settlement?; how did Covid-19 affect the operations of government and other humanitarian stakeholders at Nakivale refugee settlement and how did they deal with such impact?; what alternative policy approaches were available to guide government and other actors in dealing with socio-economic livelihoods of refugees in pandemic events? By using a cross sectional design with a qualitative approach, the study used in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and participatory mapping to explore the research questions. The study findings revealed that the imposition of country-wide lockdowns affected operations of all stakeholders which in turn also affected the socio-economic livelihoods of refugees and host communities. It was thus recommended that in future epidemic events, the government as the overall overseer of refugee situations in tandem with humanitarian agencies, would need to consider attending to the plight of refugees in totality with its response to the general citizenry
Influence of primary health care facilitating strategies on realization of health for all in Okene local government area, Kogi State, Nigeria
Get PDFThis study examined the influence of primary health care facilitating strategies on realization of health for all in Okene Local Government Area, Kogi State. The study adopted a descriptive research design of survey type. The study population involves all health workers and members of health facilities in Okene Local Government Area, Kogi State, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 280 respondents for the study. Researcher’s structured and adequately validated questionnaire was used for data collection. The reliability was established with use of test re-test method in which correlation coefficient of 0.82 was obtained using Pearson Product Moment Correlation. The data collected were analyzed using chi-square (x2) statistics at 0.05 alpha level. The findings revealed that adoption of cohesive team approach, community mobilization strategy, health advocacy initiative and intersectoral collaboration in implementation of primary health care have much influence on realization of health for all in Okene Local Government Area, Kogi State, Nigeria. The study concluded that discreet adoption and application of primary health care facilitating strategies will greatly influence attainment of health for all in Okene Local Government Area, Kogi State. It is recommended that government should constitute formidable health team to strengthen monitoring and evaluation of performances of health and health related programmes
Electronic marketing and service quality of on-line merchandisers: a case study of Jumia Uganda
Get PDFThe study examined electronic marketing and service quality of on-line merchandisers, a case study of Jumia Uganda. The specific objective was to find out the relationship between cart abandonment rate and service quality in Jumia Uganda. The research employed a cross-sectional survey design to investigate the association between electronic marketing efforts and service quality. A mixed-methods research approach, incorporating both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, was deemed highly relevant for this study. In addition, from the 255 target respondents, a definite sample size of 101 was determined using William G. Cochran (1997) formula. The study revealed significant correlations between various factors in the context of Jumia Uganda's electronic marketing. The study revealed that a moderate positive correlation (r = 0.422**) was identified between cart abandonment rate and service quality, emphasizing the critical role of service quality in customer retention and reducing cart abandonment. It was recommended that: Jumia should launch remarketing campaigns to re-engage customers who abandoned their carts. Personalized messages and incentives should be used to encourage them to return and finalize their transactions