South African Case Research Articles

A Balancing Act: South African Geography teachers’ Implementation of Teacher-Centered and Learner-Centered Instructional Strategies in Their Classrooms

Learner-centered instruction fosters 21st-century skills and must be implemented in geography classrooms. In this South African case study, most teachers predominantly implemented teacher-centered instruction. The analysis of the results established a moderate but highly significant relationship between geography teachers’ years of teaching and their implementation of teacher-centered instruction and a weak significant relation in the implementation of individual instructional strategies. Teachers with more years of teaching implemented more teacher-centered and individual learner-centered instructional strategies than early-career teachers. Teachers stated that learners and parents expected them to teach and that large classes hindered the implementation of learner-centered instruction.

The application of the doctrine of informed consent in South African medical law: Reflections on significant developments in the case law

The doctrine of informed consent is the foundation of the physician–patient relationship. This doctrine remains controversial despite its importance, and issues involving consent are frequently litigated. This article examines the application of the doctrine of informed consent in South African medical law as it has developed in South African case law. This examination first sets a normative background for consent as a ground of justification against a wrong ful act in either contract or delict (or both) that is significantly influenced by the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996. Against this normative background, a selected anthology of nine significant judgments by South African courts is analysed, with specific attention paid to the critical shift prompted by the promulgation of the Constitution. Finally, the analyses of the nine judgments are consolidated and collated to draw conclusions about the triumphs and failings of the South African courts, based on the normative background. This analysis reveals which aspects of the doctrine of informed consent have crystallised in South African medical law and which remain unclear.

Stakeholder Perspectives on the Integration of African Languages in Higher Education Learning: A South African Case Study

Since the dawn of democracy in South Africa (1994), higher education has ex- perienced substantial demographic changes. Despite South Africa’s status as a multilingual country with linguistic diversity recognised by the Constitution, higher education institutions inadequately represent this multilingualism. This gap has been identified as a contributing factor to the underperformance of students who speak Indigenous African languages in higher education. Con- sequently, various policies have been implemented to amplify the presence of African languages in higher education. Employing a case study design, this research aimed to delve into the perspectives of diverse stakeholders in a Cell Bi- ology module at a South African university regarding the use of African languages to support learning in higher education. Students, lecturers, and practical demon- strators were asked about their thoughts on the use of African languages to assist African language-speaking students. Findings revealed a divide in opinion, with students overwhelmingly in favour, lecturers expressing conflicting views, and demonstrators who spoke African languages generally supportive, while others had reservations. In the end, the central question posed is: Whose opinion holds more significance, that of the students or their lecturers?

Improving last mile distribution systems through the Internet of Things: a South African case

The study investigates the impact of the IoT on the cost and quality of last-mile logistics, the critical and often challenging final phase of the supply chain. With the relentless growth of e-commerce and the increasing demands for efficient and reliable delivery services, understanding how IoT affects last-mile logistics is increasingly becoming important. Through the integration of IoT technologies such as GPS tracking, RFID systems, and real-time data analytics, the study aimed to assess the extent to which the application of the IoT affects the cost and quality of last-mile distribution in South Africa. As a result, the study provides valuable insights into the potential cost savings or increases associated with IoT adoption, quality challenges and areas of improvement, customer satisfaction and the overall performance of last-mile distribution systems. The methodology involves the collection of primary data from selected distribution companies in South Africa. Statistical software was used to analyse the data to shed light on the tangible benefits and challenges associated with IoT adoption in last-mile logistics as they relate to cost and quality. The research findings indicate that implementing IoT in last-mile distribution systems in South Africa can significantly improve efficiency and effectiveness. The IoT integration with existing infrastructure enables seamless communication, proactive decision-making, and reduced delivery delays. Overall, by leveraging IoT technologies and real-time data analysis, organisations can optimise their distribution processes, reduce costs, improve quality, and enhance overall customer experience.

COVID-19, education and access to digital technologies: A case study of a secondary school in Gauteng

The first South African case of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in March 2020 escalated to the national lockdown by the end of March 2020. This caused serious repercussions for learners, as there is a lack of infrastructure in South Africa to support online teaching and learning. The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of digital technologies during COVID-19 by teachers. A case study was used and data were collected using a desktop literature review and a semi-structured, open-ended, qualitative questionnaire. The questionnaire was administered to teachers at a secondary school in the Gauteng province, South Africa (SA) and Atlas.ti was used for data analysis. We conclude that online learning was affected by socio-economic problems, the high cost of data and the lack of devices and parental supervision. The recommendations include ways in which government could prepare for future crises that could arise, as well as promoting ongoing attention to digital technology use in teaching and learning to address the digital divide in South Africa. With this study we add to the body of knowledge regarding COVID-19 and the use of digital technologies in teaching and learning, which will assist the government and teachers in understanding the problems and solutions for the use of digital technology in teaching and learning.

Student peer support initiatives in higher education: A collection of South African case studies by X. Cupido, N. Frade, T. Govender, E. Samkange & S. Pather (Eds.) (2022). Stellenbosch, SA: African Sun Media

Student peer support initiatives in higher education: A collection of South African case studies by X. Cupido, N. Frade, T. Govender, E. Samkange & S. Pather (Eds.) (2022). Stellenbosch, SA: African Sun Media

Guidelines for Sustainable Use of Mobile Instant Messaging Apps in Higher Education: A South African Case Study

Objective: The purpose of the study was to propose guidelines to facilitate the sustainable and successful use of mobile instant messaging apps for learning and teaching based on a review of the literature and perceptions of educators. Fraser’s model of redistribution, recognition, and representation served as the theoretical framework. This study provides a mechanism for the development of a socially just and inclusive online classroom environment. Method: We conducted two focus groups (<em>n</em> = 4 and <em>n</em> = 3) in November 2021 at a university of technology in South Africa to explore the perceptions of educators on using mobile instant messaging (MIM) apps for learning and teaching, to identify challenges, and to suggest solutions. The data were thematically coded and analyzed to detect themes using Saldana’s six-step process. Results: Sustainable and successful use of MIM apps for learning and teaching requires guidelines in three areas: practical management, privacy and security, and sustainable use. Key considerations include uniformity of use, student consultation, data control, operating hours, appointment of a chat moderator, language communication, access control, monitoring communication, regular feedback, and formalizing MIM app use through institutional policies. Conclusion: The proposed guidelines promote the sustainable and successful use of MIM applications in learning and teaching environments. The guidelines offer practical solutions to ensure that the use of MIM apps is ethical, inclusive, and effective in supporting student learning.

Speaker landscapes: machine learning opens a window on the everyday language of opinion

ABSTRACTWe propose a new method that embeds speakers into a spatial representation according to the linguistic similarity of their contributions to a debate. Such “speaker landscapes” can be constructed quantitatively using word embeddings by annotating text corpora of speech samples by tokens representing the speakers. The way embeddings are constructed from predictive machine learning models means that speaker-tokens are placed closer together if they are easier to confuse given their speech samples. The result is a nuanced measure of similarity in speech which takes into account the wealth of linguistic signification and structure that the text prediction model can learn. We validate this tool using two South African case studies: the Twitter debate around the arrest and imprisonment of former president Jacob Zuma, and quotes from the news media about land reform. The results show that speaker landscapes make social qualities such as group membership and opinions evident, and we discuss how speaker landscapes open up new methods for studying opinion discourse with text data.

Educators’ uptake of Kress’s ideas on meaning-making and literacy: a case study from South Africa

Abstract This article is a practitioner-based account of the uptake of Kress’s ideas on literacy, literature and meaning-making in South African educational contexts, in particular, his integration of politics, semiosis and literacy. It examines the affective force of these ideas in South African classrooms in certain institutions during the immediate post-apartheid period from 1994 onwards, showing how Kress’s key concepts and principles provided a transformative theoretical framework for the work of progressive educators. A Kress-inspired framework propelled new conceptualisations of literacy and meaning-making in these classrooms and beyond – at all levels, from primary through to tertiary – and fuelled research from 1994 into the first decade of the new millennium. Given Kress’s insistence on the social, as in social semiotics, and his stress on the integration of representation, communication and situatedness, this article focuses on his ideas in context, how and why they were put to work and what their outcomes were. It is proposed that the South African case – although unique in many ways – may be relevant to postcolonial and decolonising educational contexts in the South more generally.

Optimal integration of solar home systems and appliance scheduling for residential homes under severe national load shedding

In developing countries like South Africa, users experienced more than 1 030 hours of load shedding outages in just the first half of 2023 due to inadequate power supply from the national grid. Residential homes that cannot afford to take actions to mitigate the challenges of load shedding are severely inconvenienced as they have to reschedule their demand involuntarily. This study presents optimal strategies to guide households in determining suitable scheduling and sizing solutions for solar home systems to mitigate the inconvenience experienced by residents due to load shedding. To start with, we predict the load shedding stages that are used as input for the optimal strategies by using the K-Nearest Neighbour (KNN) algorithm. Based on an accurate forecast of the future load shedding patterns, we formulate the residents’ inconvenience and the loss of power supply probability during load shedding as the objective function. When solving the multi-objective optimisation problem, four different strategies to fight against load shedding are identified, namely (1) optimal home appliance scheduling (HAS) under load shedding; (2) optimal HAS supported by solar panels; (3) optimal HAS supported by batteries, and (4) optimal HAS supported by the solar home system with both solar panels and batteries. Among these strategies, appliance scheduling with an optimally sized 9.6 kWh battery and a 2.74 kWp panel array of five 550 Wp panels, eliminates the loss of power supply probability and reduces the inconvenience by 92% when tested under the South African load shedding cases in 2023.

New-onset chronic spontaneous urticaria post-COVID-19 vaccination-South African case series.

Chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU) is defined as the spontaneous occurrence of hives, angioedema, or both for more than 6 weeks; several inciting triggers including vaccines have been implicated. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccinations have been well tolerated by patients with CSU. However, reports have emerged of CSU triggered by COVID-19 vaccination and this study describes a South African case series. To provide details of the first case series of new-onset CSU post-COVID-19 vaccination in Africa and summarize the global literature of reported cases to date. All patients referred to our Urticaria Center of Excellence in Cape Town from the initiation of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in South Africa (from February 2021 to August 2022) were reviewed to identify patients who developed new-onset CSU within 12 weeks of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine. Medical history, physical examinations, and laboratory investigations were reviewed. More than 20 million adults received COVID-19 vaccinations in South Africa during the study period. Eight patients had new-onset chronic urticaria post-COVID-19 vaccination; 6 of the 8 patients were female, the median age was 41 years (interquartile range [IQR], 38-44), and all had a history of atopy. Only 1 reported COVID-19 infection post vaccination. Chronic urticaria occurred following Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca, and Janssen Ad26.COV2.S vaccination in 6, 1, and 1 patient, respectively, with a median of 12 days (IQR, 3-38) from vaccination to symptoms onset. The baseline median score for Urticarial Activity Score 7 was 34 (IQR, 29-40), and 5 of the 8 patients (63%) had a total IgE level of more than 43 IU/L. All patients received high-dose antihistamines, with only 3 patients controlled. New-onset CSU can rarely be triggered by COVID-19 vaccinations, most commonly mRNA vaccines. COVID-19 vaccine-triggered CSU appears to have a phenotype similar to that triggered by other inciting agents and across populations.

Path creation for an electricity transition in South African tourism

Transitions to low-carbon energy are central to sustainability transitions, with electricity being a pressing current concern both in South Africa and globally. Economic, social, institutional, and political factors often make transitioning to renewable electricity particularly complex. In this article, we examine electricity transitions in tourism from a global South context, combining evolutionary economic geography (EEG) concepts with the multi-level perspective (MLP). Our findings point to strong exogenous lock-in factors working against an electricity transition in South African tourism. A historic dependence on coal, along with complex place-based factors lock the country into a carbon-intensive electricity path at the national electricity infrastructure level. In turn, these complexities adversely affect an electricity transition in the tourism sector. However, energy policy change along with innovation by tourism actors is emergent stimuli for creating low-carbon electricity paths. More specifically, recent climate change mitigation policies, the increasing unreliability of grid electricity, and legislative reforms are significant factors encouraging the renewal of the electricity system. At the same time, it is becoming more cost-effective for businesses, including tourism establishments, to install renewables. The South African case contributes to the emerging body of literature on sustainability transitions in tourism. It does this by showing that to achieve a just energy transition, proper appraisal of path-dependent structural challenges is needed to understand the nature and levels of change required.

Experiences of Women with Disabilities in Accessing Maternal Healthcare Services: A South African Case Study.

Access to maternal healthcare services is a challenge in most low- and middle-income countries. South Africa is one of the countries striving to improve the accessibility of maternal healthcare services. Although South Africa has put some interventions in place to improve the accessibility of maternal healthcare services, vulnerable women including women with disabilities are still facing numerous challenges when trying to access these services. The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of women with disabilities in the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa in accessing public maternal healthcare services. The objectives of this study were to describe the experiences of women with disabilities in accessing maternal healthcare services during pregnancy, childbirth and post-partum care; explore the inhibitors of access to maternal healthcare services for women with disabilities; and explore the facilitators of access to maternal healthcare services for women with disabilities. Twelve women with disabilities (four with physical impairments, four with hearing impairments and four with visual impairments) were interviewed for this study. Data were transcribed verbatim and analysed utilising the Framework of Assessing Access to Maternal Healthcare Services by Peters et al., 2008. Our study found that narrow passages and information in inaccessible formats were a challenge for women with visual impairments. Women with hearing impairments faced communication difficulties due to the lack of sign language interpreters in most facilities. Moreover, healthcare professionals displayed unfavourable attitudes toward women with hearing impairments, and these women were often overlooked when seeking help. The women with physical impairments encountered inaccessible buildings, narrow passages, small consultation rooms and equipment that is not adjustable, such as beds and scales.

Optimal deployment of energy services for economic upliftment of low-income communities: A South African case study

Low-income communities face a causality dilemma: A lack of energy services hampers income growth and insufficient income hampers energy service provision. Interventions delivering cost-effective energy services can address this dilemma, triggering a virtuous cycle of economic upliftment. While several studies have investigated cost-effective energy supply to low-income communities, a gap exists regarding holistic optimization of energy service deployment at different levels of economic development. Hence, a novel energy system model of a South African village is presented to optimize deployment and hourly dispatch of energy supply and energy services to recover time lost to poverty-related activities (e.g., gathering wood and water). Results showed that an optimized technology rollout can save each person over 1500 productive hours per year at an average cost below 0.2 $/hour. The model also identified the optimal order of technology deployment for driving economic development. Interestingly, an electrical grid connection was of minor importance because local mini-grids could economically supply the modest power demands of lighting, refrigeration, water pumping, and cleaning, while energy-intensive cooking and water heating can be economically performed using fuels and solar heaters. Detailed studies of individual low-income communities are recommended to outline optimal technology deployment strategies and reveal the low costs involved.

A Boosted Evolutionary Neural Architecture Search for Timeseries Forecasting with Application to South African COVID-19 Cases

In recent years, there has been an increase in studies on time-series forecasting for the future occurrence of disease incidents. Improvements in deep learning approaches offer techniques for modelling long-term temporal relationships. Nonetheless, this design practice is rigorously painstaking, prone to errors, and requires human expertise. The advent of feature enrichment with automatic architecture search typically optimises the discovery of new neural architectures applicable in domains such as time-series modelling. The main methodological contribution of this study is an approach for time-series forecasting using feature-enriched filters and an evolutionary neural architecture search with sequence-to-sequence gated recurrent units (GRU-Seq2Seq). This is applied to the prediction of daily cases of coronavirus disease in South Africa. The highly pathogenic coronavirus pandemic incident data was modelled with filters, optimised hyper-parameter search trials and an evolutional neural algorithm. The proposed model was benchmarked against ARIMA and SARIMA. The model predicted trends for 30, 60 and 90-day horizons and evaluated them for 7, 14 and 31 days. Simulation results demonstrate that observed daily case counts with added filters and evolutionary search optimisation for forecasting improve performance accuracy. Generally, the proposed bFilter+GRU-Seq2Seq with optimal search configuration outperformed ARIMA and SARIMA with lower error scores and higher performance metrics, with an R2 score of 7.48E-01 for a 30-day forecast horizon.

Proposing a farm assessment toolkit: evaluating a South African land reform case study

ABSTRACT The paper presents a robust, scientific evaluation method to determine the potential viability of a farm, compared to its current performance. The comparison informs recommendations for sustainable farm development. The process entails a stepwise analysis of land suitability, enterprise potential, infrastructure status, operator capacity, inherent limitations and external risks of the farm. An expert panel considers quantitative and qualitative data to establish suitable development measures. Applied to a land reform initiative, ±2000 farms entailing 1.86 million hectares were evaluated, detailing corrective measures for each farm. Roughly 59% of the evaluated farms were potentially commercial, but only 7% performed accordingly. Correlations between farmer capability and farm performance, as well as between infrastructure and performance, were evident, indicating that post-settlement support is vital. As risk and limitation scores increased, farm viability tended to decrease. The tool accurately determined viability based on available resources (natural and physical), resulting in evidence-based policy advice. The evaluation informed land reform policy recommendations, proposing more coordinated support to improve access to services. The tool would also be useful for farmers to reflect on enterprise performance. The visual, sequential nature of the evaluation facilitates sound decision-making. The tool has potential as a valid agricultural development evaluation instrument.

Augmentative and alternative communication in the South African justice system: Potential and pitfalls

Any form of disability renders one more vulnerable to becoming a victim of violence (including sexual abuse) than peers without disability. Within the disability sphere, persons with communication disabilities are particularly vulnerable due to various contributing factors. Despite this heightened risk and the subsequent increased need to seek justice, access to justice remains elusive for these individuals. Their communication disabilities hinder their ability to seek the assistance of police officers, which is the entry point for accessing the justice system. The repercussions are that these cases seldom go to court and in the rare event that they do, the court appears to be unaware and unable to efficiently provide accommodations that would allow individuals with communication ­disabilities to obtain justice. Augmentative and alternative communication can allow them to exercise their autonomy, to make decisions, and share information. In this paper, several different augmentative and alternative communication methods and strategies are described with a focus on picture-based systems. A recent South African case is used to illustrate how access to justice was achieved using such a system. A potential pitfall when using personally relevant photographs as part of a symbol-based system is alluded to.

Principals’ Leadership and Management Perspective on High School Violence: The South African Case Study

Principals’ Leadership and Management Perspective on High School Violence: The South African Case Study

On the Dynamic Relationship between Household Debt and Income Inequality in South Africa

This paper analyses the relationship between household debt and income inequality in South Africa for the period 1980–2021. We use two measures of inequality and estimate a vector error correction model (VECM) which includes household debt, inequality, and other macroeconomic variables. To test the robustness of our results, single equation models are used, which estimate household debt as a function of inequality and macroeconomic factors. We employ two measures of inequality, namely Gini coefficient and ratio of top and bottom income earners’ proportion of income. Furthermore, we use both household debt as a percentage of disposable income and household debt service costs as dependent variables in single equation regressions. The study finds a negative and significant relationship between household debt and income inequality in the long run, which contradicts the Rajan hypothesis in the South African case. Rather, we find that inequality in South Africa creates a bias in debt allocation towards high-income earners, whose incomes can easily absorb the extra debt (reduced ratio of debt to disposable income). There are therefore no socio-equity considerations in South African credit markets. We find growth in gross domestic product (GDP) per capita also has a moderating effect on the relationship between household debt and income inequality. High GDP per capita growth in the presence of high inequality reduces the impact of inequality on household debt and vice-versa. All other control variables take expected signs. These results are robust to changes in the inequality or household debt measures.

Tax treatment of collective investment scheme portfolios in South Africa: Assessing implications and alternative solutions

The Collective Investment Scheme (CIS) industry plays a significant role in South Africa's savings and economic landscape, with substantial growth and assets under management in recent years. However, the tax treatment of CIS portfolios has become a subject of concern, as incorrect approaches could lead to substantial revenue losses for the fiscus. This study examines the proposed amendment to section 25BA put forward in the 2018 Draft Taxation Laws Amendment Bill, which aims to introduce a new tax treatment for the proceeds of sales of financial instruments held by CIS portfolios for less than 12 months. Through a comprehensive analysis of the proposed amendment, this study explores the potential implications and challenges that may arise if the amendment is implemented. It also investigates the common law principles in South African case law regarding capital and revenue determination and assesses their applicability to CIS managers and portfolios. By doing so, the study highlights the need for clarity and consistency in tax methodology to ensure fair treatment within the CIS industry. In response to the identified issues, the study proposes alternative solutions that align with existing legislative frameworks and uphold precedents set by case law. These alternative solutions aim to promote tax compliance, transparency, and efficiency within the CIS industry, while avoiding the potential drawbacks associated with the proposed amendment. The findings of this study contribute to the ongoing discourse surrounding tax and provide valuable insights for policymakers, regulators, and stakeholders within the CIS industry. By critically examining the Proposed Amendment, analysing its implications, and offering alternative solutions, this research contributes to a better understanding of the complexities surrounding tax treatment in the CIS industry and facilitates informed decision-making.