Higher Learning In Africa Research Articles

Scaffolding African Language Intellectualisation: The Case of Sesotho and Setswana at a South African University

The call for the intellectualisation of African languages has become a topical agenda towards their use as languages of teaching and learning in institutions of higher learning in Africa. In their enunciation of language policies, South African universities are guided by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET)’s Language Policy Framework for Public Higher Education Institutions (LPFPHEI). The thrust of this paper is to interrogate how the language policy of one university in South Africa enables the intellectualisation of African languages. The study deploys Ruiz’s notion of language as a resource to examine the potential embedded within the university’s language policy to foster the intellectualisation of Sesotho and Setswana for use as LoTLs in a variety of disciplines. The university is one of the institutions of higher learning with the most recently revised language policy approved in 2022, hence its selection as the case study. The paper concludes that an enabling language policy that speaks to the linguistic realities, coupled with a variety of support structures within the university and also spelling out the implementation plan is what will result in the fruitful re-intellectualisation of African languages.

Affordances of Using Educational Technology in Teaching Critical Reading: Insights from an Action Research Study in a Ugandan University

The rapid increase in student enrolment and/or massification, also implicated in large class sizes, has been problematised for compromising quality education. Institutions of higher learning in Africa have embraced the use of ICT as one of the approaches to cope with the challenges of massification. The purpose of this study was to provide an examplar on how teachers can use ICTs to optimise learning from higher-order to lower-order thinking skills. The study uses action research methodology, undertaken with undergraduate students in a Ugandan university, to illuminate the researchers’ experiences in using educational technologies to support the teaching of critical reading. Firstly, we demonstrate how learning progressed from lower-order to higher-order thinking skills as informed by Bloom’s taxonomy. We also show how we optimised the use of technology from the dominant simple substitution, which was also teacher-centred, to a more complex redefinition, which is also learner-centred, as informed by the SAMR model. Finally, we highlight the affordances of using emerging technologies to support transformative learning. These include ongoing learning, monitoring/feedback, research, deeper interaction, peer-review, creativity, and reflection. The study has implications for in-service as well as pre-service teacher education programs which should integrate relevant theoretical frameworks in equipping teachers to optimise the use of technology in supporting teaching and learning.

Strategic Management Practices for Climate Change Mitigation in Institutions of Higher Learning in Africa

This study explores the strategic management practices employed by higher education institutions in Africa to mitigate the effects of climate change. As the continent faces increasing environmental challenges, universities and colleges play a crucial role in spearheading sustainable initiatives. Through an extensive review of literature and empirical evidence, the research identifies four key objectives: enhancing strategic leadership, fostering stakeholder engagement, building capacity among staff and students, and formulating effective climate policies. Findings indicate that transformative leadership and collaborative partnerships are essential for driving successful climate action. Furthermore, programs focused on capacity building significantly enhance the knowledge and skills necessary for effective sustainability practices. The study concludes with recommendations for institutions to strengthen their climate initiatives by prioritizing inclusive engagement, investing in training, and aligning policies with national and international commitments. These insights aim to support academic leaders, policymakers, and stakeholders in promoting environmental sustainability and resilience within African higher education contexts.

Appropriate Technology for Teaching and Learning in Ghanaian Higher Educational Institutions during and Post Covid-19 Era

The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted learning and resulted in a paradigm shift pertaining to the delivery of higher education services. In light of the guidelines on social distancing, online learning dominated teaching and learning in higher educational institutions across the globe. The Ghanaian higher educational sector had to adapt to the changing circumstances and wide adoption of electronic learning was a viable option. This study examines the extent to which higher educational institutions were able to embrace online learning. However, institutions of higher learning in Africa, in general, and in Ghana, in particular, seem to have deficiencies in terms of acquiring the necessary technology. Skills deficiency on the part of technicians, the inadequacy of infrastructure, and limited electronic readiness are among the factors compromising the effective use of information communication technologies (ICTs) in teaching and learning in Ghanaian higher educational institutions. Quality assurance is a central feature of a framework for enhancing the success of online teaching and learning. The other key elements include increasing the level of electronic readiness in Ghana, building the capacity of ICT technicians to develop the appropriate software, ensuring affordability of hardware, software, and data services, and training of both the lecturers and students. Huge financial investments, beyond the scope of the Ghanaian government, are required and multi-stakeholder collaborations seem to be viable funding options.

Lethargic Research Projects: Student-supervisor’s Dilemmas in Managing Research Projects

Starting an academic research project is an exciting journey which students approach with high zeal, excitement and passion. Eventually, the excitement reduces; very few complete on time, a sizable number abandon their studies and others drag on for long beyond the allowable academic time. In fact, most of the students end up applying for extension of time before they are deregistered. On estimate, only 10% of those who begin their PhD journey are able to complete in an average 4 years’ time. This paper analyzed the dilemmas students go through in their research process and the challenges supervisors meet in handling doctoral research projects. The study employed an exploratory design. Self-administered questionnaires were used on 42 respondents who included; PhD students on a research project, PhD student supervisors and PhD holders who had undertaken a research project. Data analysis was done concurrently with data gathering using content analysis method. The study findings indicated that supervisor challenges are mainly institutional constructed, while students recounted lack of clear guidance and orientation on the research process, attributed to both the institution and supervisor. Mutually, there is a tendency to assume that both parties have a clear familiarity with the study process. The study recommends the need for attention in; planning, design and orientation of both students and supervisors in managing academic research projects specifically, outlining expected milestones at each level. The study designed a triad supervisory model that can be adopted by institutions of higher learning in Africa to improve graduate rates, solve the student-supervisor challenges and improve PhD quality of research.

Gender responsive multidisciplinary doctoral training program: the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA) experience

ABSTRACTDoctoral training has increasingly become the requirement for faculty in institutions of higher learning in Africa. Africa, however, still lacks sufficient capacity to conduct research, with just 1.4% of all published research authored by African researchers. Similarly, women in Sub-Saharan Africa only constitute 30% of the continent’s researchers, and correspondingly publish little research. Challenging these gendered inequities requires a gender responsive doctoral program that caters for women’s gender roles that likely affect their enrollment in, and completion of, doctoral programs. In this article, we describe a public and population health multidisciplinary doctoral training program – CARTA and its approach to supporting women. This has resulted in women’s enrollment in the program equaling men’s and similar throughput rates. CARTA has achieved this by meeting women’s practical needs around childbearing and childrearing and we argue that this has produced some outcomes that challenge gender norms, such as fathers being child minders in support of their wives and creating visible female role models.

AN ASSESSMENT OF THE IMPLICATIONS OF RESEARCH POLICIES ON RESEARCH PERFORMANCE IN AFRICAN TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS

This paper focuses on the assessment of the implications of research policies on the performance of research at the institutions of higher learning in Africa. There are numerous challenges the institutions face and these among others include limited supply of high quality evaluation evidence, which is seen as the market failure for both education outcomes and the institutional research. The public seems to have limited information about performance in universities and educators face limited incentives to improve performance. In the market for institutional research, consumers face information problems, which in turn make it difficult to determine the quality of research product due to work overloads on the part of the lecturers and students. The success of institutional research policies are therefore based on requiring better data in the institutions under study to ascertain the workloads and to limit management interferences in research.

African Oral Literature and the Humanities: Challenges and Prospects

This paper examines the origin, evolution and emergence of folklore (oral literature) as an academic discipline in Africa and its place in the humanities. It draws attention to the richness of indigenous knowledge contained in oral literature and demonstrates how the ethical and moral gap in the existing educational system can be filled by the moral precepts embedded in oral literature. The paper argues that African oral literature has not received the attention it deserves among other disciplines of the humanities in institutions of higher learning in Africa. It concludes that any discussion on African literature will be incomplete, and indeed irrelevant, if it does not equally give adequate attention to the oral literature of the African people. As a result, a new curriculum and pedagogy must be designed to give pride of place to folklore and oral literature as the best repository of our cultural norms and values especially in African tertiary institutions.

Perceptions, preferences of scholarly publishing in Open Access journals

PurposeThe purpose of the study is to know the various factors librarians consider while selecting Open Access (OA) journal for publication and to identify the challenges librarians face with OA journal publishing.Design/methodology/approachOnline questionnaire was designed to collect data from 402 academic librarians in 87 universities in Africa using SurveyMonkey software.FindingsThe study found that academic librarians are aware of the “green” and “gold” routes but not familiar with the “diamond” route. The study revealed that a large number of the academic librarians have published only one paper in OA journals, followed by those who have not published any paper in OA journals. The study also revealed that reputation of journal and impact factor of journal were seen as very important among the factors that inform them of choosing OA. The majority of the respondents agreed that author fees, and lack of stable internet connectivity are the major barriers to publishing in OA journals.Practical implicationsThe study recommends that academic libraries in institutions of higher learning in Africa should organize seminars periodically on the need for their librarians to research and publish in OA journals.Social implicationsIdentifying factors involved in author decisions to publish in OA journals will help illuminate issues that may encourage or discourage author support of OA publishing models. Further understanding of these issues can assist the efforts to improve author perceptions of and confidence in OA publications.Originality/valueIt is believed that this study of African librarians publishing in OA journals is the first study in the region.

Demystifying research methods: everyday experiences as socio-cultural co(n)texts for effective research methods in teaching and learning in institutions of higher learning in Africa

The aim of the paper is to demonstrate how everyday knowledge can be incorporated into the classroom practices of institutions of higher learning to inform inclusive outcomes for linguistically and culturally diverse students. Using a metaphor of a marketer’s everyday interrogation of market conditions, a postgraduate guide to proposal writing and the funds of knowledge socio-cultural framework, we illustrate how forms of everyday and school knowledge can be used concurrently in the construction of socially responsive dialogic pedagogy. We argue for scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) in the South in which knowledge and theory generation is not a preserve of English only, but more so, of the complex interactions between English and the multiplicity of languages that students bring to the classroom. We conclude that SOTL in the South needs to be founded on the transfiguration of everyday knowledge and formal academic knowledge to facilitate the production of new and more powerful knowledge in multicultural postcolonial society. This would allow for inclusive pedagogy that caters for diversity in classrooms, and activity-based teaching and learning, networking students’ experiential, community/home and formal academic knowledge in the construction of new and powerful knowledge.
 
 How to cite this article:
 BANDA, Felix; BANDA, Dennis. Demystifying research methods: everyday experiences as socio-cultural co(n)texts for effective research methods in teaching and learning in institutions of higher learning in Africa. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South, [S.l.], v. 1, n. 1, p. 60-77, sep. 2017. Available at: <http://sotl-south-journal.net/?journal=sotls&page=article&op=view&path%5B%5D=13>. Date accessed: 12 sep. 2017.
 
 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Provision of Records Created in Networked Environments in the Curricula of Institutions of Higher Learning in Africa

ABSTRACTThe importance of curriculum development on archives and records management in the digital era, especially on the African continent, cannot be overemphasized. While many universities in the global hub have included studies on all aspects of archives and records management programs with many emphasizing records created in networked environments, the same cannot be said about universities on the African continent. In Africa, education and training of archives and records professionals can be traced back several decades. Archives and records practitioners in Africa’s different countries have, over the years, taken varying paths to attain their professional qualifications. This study outlines progress on an ongoing study by InterPARES Trust Africa Team that examines the curricula in different African educational institutions and investigates the extent to which they address the increasingly complex environment that includes the management of digital records in networked environments. It is hoped that the study will inform curriculum development and review in the area of digital records at the institutions of higher learning in Africa.

Culture as Philosophy of the First Order Activity

Any philosophy is closely tied to and truly inseparable from culture. This paper specifically examines the ontological status of any culture. In its full stretch, it focuses on whether or not there is any “philosophy” in a people’s culture and if in the affirmative, what type of philosophy it is, and how it relates to scientific or strictly academic philosophy in vogue of nearly all the academic institutions of higher learning in Africa and in many other foreign nations as well. The method employed in this article is hermeneutics, a method used to mid-wife philosophy from culture since it frames the dialectics between philosophy and non philosophy. The writer concludes that culture is philosophy of some sort or philosophy of the first order activity; it provides the professional philosophers the data base on which to transcend into pure, critical philosophy. The thin line between the two senses of philosophy, namely, philosophy in the strict sense and in the loose sense is thereby clarified, linked and joined in a mutual relationship of bedrock provision.

The Role of Christian Educational Institutions in Improving Economic Self-Reliance

This article argues that Christian educational institutions in Africa can play a major role in improving economic self-reliance within the continent, if those who establish Christian universities there take time to plan the programs and activities in those institutions. Specifically, it argues that with proper planning of quality education–the curriculum, the choice of extra-curricular activities, the teaching methods, and proper assessment–Africa's situation, especially its economy will improve. The paper insists that God gave a mandate to Christians to lead out in the world when He called them the light of the world (Matthew 5:14-16) as well as promised that they would be the head and not the tail (Deuteronomy 28:13). Finally, it ends with several recommendations that will help leaders of Christian universities in Africa to plan education in such a way to improve the economy of the continent. While the paper addresses Christian institutions of higher learning in general, it focuses its attention on Seventh-day Adventist educational institutions of higher learning in Africa and draws its examples from Babcock University in Nigeria, West Africa.