Universities Yearbook Research Articles

Commonwealth University Yearbook

Commonwealth University Yearbook

ZIMBABWE SINCE INDEPENDENCE: A PEOPLE'S ASSESSMENT

SINCE INDEPENDENCE IN 1980, the Zimbabwean government under Robert Mugabe has made a concerted public effort to change the society it inherited in the direction of socialism, while maintaining a pragmatic approach to avoid alienating the white population which plays a major role in the economy. Thus, in spite of promises, reallocation of farm land has moved very slowly, since the government agreed to volunteer sales at commercial rates for any private land it took over.l As a result of this and one of the highest birth rates in the world, the African rural population is even more crowded than it was before and there has been large-scale migration to the cities. While only 14 per cent of the population lived in urban areas in 1965, by 1988 27 per cent did.2 However, the government has been far more successful in expanding the education and health systems, providing services much more widely than in the past. Given fair treatment, African agriculture has also become more productive, making Zimbabwe one of the few African countries able to export food. Improvements in education and health care have touched the lives of most people; schools and clinics in villages across the country help to fulfill aspirations for a better quality and standard of life. The number of children in primary school went up from 820,000 in 1979 to 2 2 million in 1986 and the numbers in secondary schools from 66,000 to over 545,000; the university had 7,699 students in 1989, compared to only 1,931 just before independence.3 Many jobs became available to blacks in the immediate aftermath of independence, but it has been an increasing problem to provide the rising numbers of school leavers with the hoped-for wage employment in a situation where the industrial base of the country well-developed in the UDI period has expanded very little in recent years. Thus, paradoxically, educational improvement has not necessarily made people more contented; as in many other countries, aspirations have been raised which cannot be satisfied, at least in the short term. Andrew Nyanguru is at the School of Social Work, Harare. He has done extensive research on the elderly, especially in residential homes. Margaret Peil is Director of the Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham, U.K. She has also studied the elderly in Nigeria and Sierra Leone. They are grateful to the Nuffield Foundation for a grant for data collection and to the School of Social Work, Harare, for logistical support. 1. R. Palmer, 'Land reform in Zimbabwe, 198s1990', African Affairs, 89 (1990), pp. 16>81. 2. World Bank, World Development Report 1990, (Oxford University Press, London, (1991), Table 31. 3. F. Chung, 'Education, revolution or reform?' In C. Stoneman (ed.), Zimbabwe's Prospects: Issues of Race, Class, State and Capital in Southern Africa (Macmillan, London, 1988), pp . 1 2S7; Commonwealth Universities Yearbook (Association of Commonwealth Universities, London, 1981, 1989).

Gender displays in portrait photographs

Following the research of Goffman (1976) and Henley (1977) on sex differences in nonverbal behavior, 1,296 portrait photographs from high school and university yearbooks and from the media files of a university were analyzed for sex differences. Females smiled with a significantly greater frequency and expansiveness than males and head canted significantly more than males. Results supporting the hypothesis that males would face the camera more directly than females failed to reach the acceptable significance level. The prediction that persons working in opposite-sex roles would deintensify their gender displays failed to gain support.

Review of Commonwealth Universities Yearbook 1976

Review of Commonwealth Universities Yearbook 1976

The Making of a Conglomerate. Edited by Charles Gilbert. Hempstead, N.Y., Hofstra University Yearbook of Business, Series 8, Volume 3, 1972. Pp. 385. $10.00.

The Making of a Conglomerate. Edited by Charles Gilbert. Hempstead, N.Y., Hofstra University Yearbook of Business, Series 8, Volume 3, 1972. Pp. 385. $10.00.

Commonwealth Universities Yearbook, 1965

Commonwealth Universities Yearbook, 1965

Book Review: Commonwealth Universities Yearbook 1959

Book Review: Commonwealth Universities Yearbook 1959

Book Review: Commonwealth Universities Yearbook

Book Review: Commonwealth Universities Yearbook

Industrial Research, 1946

A REFERENCE book on industrial research which provided fin one volume not merely relevant information of which at present search has to be maele volumes such as “Who's Who”, the “Yearbook of Scientific ana [Learned Societies”, the “Universities Yearbook”, an the registers of various professional or technical associations, but also much that has not been brought together in this way, would prove a real boon to the busy executive, research manager or industrial scientific worker concerned with the planning or administration of research. The present volume, however, misses the mark. Covering a wide field, it does so too imperfectly to replace, even for research purposes, such volumes as those mentioned, and it does little to supply the information which is lacking in those reference works and which they could not reasonably be expected to supply. The publishers show no clear conception of either the public for whom the book is intended or the precise purposes the book is designed to serve. Attempting too much, no field is covered thoroughly enough for reference purposes, and the resulting ‘hotch-potch’ is a bulky volume which cannot justify in its present form a place on the reference shelf of the library or the desk of the industrialist. Industrial Research, 1946 Pp. 738. (London and New York: Todd Publishing Co., Ltd., 1946.) 21s, net.

Association of Scientific Workers

THE annual report of the Executive Committee of the Association of Scientific Workers presented to the Council on February 24 refers to the formation of a National Parliamentary Science Committee as an outcome of negotiations with the British Science Guild as the outstanding special work of the year. The support of twelve leading institutions has been obtained, and the committee includes Sir James Henderson, Prof. Miles Walker, Prof. Blackman, with Commander Bernacchi as chairman, and Mr. A. Howard and Mr. H. J. W. Stone as joint honorary secretaries. In consequence, the Parliamentary Committee of the British Science Guild and of the Association have been disbanded. The compilation of a “Handbook of Extra-University Research in Pure and Applied Science”, giving data concerning commercial, endowed and private research laboratories, has been completed and negotiations for publication are in progress. It is believed that the handbook will serve as an advertisement of British research activities and of the interest taken by British industrialists in maintaining the highest efficiency in factories. The book may become a standard work of reference alongside the “Universities Yearbook” and the “Year-Book of Scientific and Learned Societies”.

A Comparative Survey of Educational Aims and Methods in British India and British Tropical Africa

The fact that the Yearbooks of Education, 1932, 1933, edited by Lord Eustace Percy, devote a large portion of their space to education in British dependencies, and that the whole of the Educational Yearbook, 1931, of the International Institute of Teachers College, Columbia University, is devoted to a study of Colonial systems of education, with a liberal apportionment of space to British Colonial policy, shows the widespread interest that is now being taken in the education of the more primitive or indigenous races for which the more advanced countries are acting as trustees. The articles on British Tropical Africa and British India in the Yearbooks of Education, 1932 and 1933, and the survey of education in Tanganyika Territory in the Columbia University Yearbook, afford material for a comparison of educational aims in Africa and India, which may be of interest to the reader, as it certainly has been a source of profit to the writer of this article. The time has not yet come for passing any judgement on British educational policy in the African colonies, and it would be rash to predict the results of plans that have not yet matured and are constantly being adapted to changing conditions and newly discovered needs. But it is possible to survey as a whole the history of education in India from the date of Macaulay's Minute up to 1920, when education passed from the control of the central British Government to the charge of Ministers responsible to Provincial Legislative Councils. This history reveals risks to which tropical races brought into educational contact with western civilization are exposed, and suggests, by its record, of failure as well as success, means whereby these risks, so far as they are real in Africa, may be minimized. Sir Philip Hartog and Mr. Rivers-Smith are so well qualified for the work they have done in these Yearbooks, and have been so cautious in their presentation of the Indian and African situation, that no careful reader of their articles is likely to suppose that conclusions drawn from the one country are necessarily applicable to the other. But there is very much to be gained from a comparative study.

A Self-Styled Faculty of Sciences

SEVERAL correspondents have sent us copies of a letter and circular which they have recently received inviting them to become follows of a body having the title “The International Faculty of Sciences”, with an office at 36 Gordon Square, London, W.C.I. The preliminary prospectus, issued more than a year ago, did not include the word “International” and was the subject of some severe comments in Truth of September 16, 1931. The new circular, which appears to have boon widely distributed, invites application to be made for admission “as a Fellow of the Faculty of Sciences” and states that “The application of every candidate for fellowship must be accompanied by a remittance of one guinea.” After election, “every Fellow is entitled to use after his name tho initials ‘F.F.Sc.’”. There is, of course, no relation whatever between this International Faculty of Sciences and the Faculty of Science of the University of London, though the similar title adopted by the new body must lead to misunderstanding in the minds of many people. The president and vice-presidents of this body are stated upon the circular to be as follows:—“President: Prof. H. W. Blood Ryan, M.A., D.Sc., LL.1X, Ph.D. Vice-Presidents: Prof. Ingo W. D. Hackh; Prof. R. F. Hunter, D.Sc., Ph.D., D.I.C., A.R.C.Sc.; Prof. Nicholas Knight, A.M., Ph.D.; Prof. Cyril Krauz; Prof. Marius Rebek, Ph.D.” As the body is “International” in its title, it is perhaps not surprising that only ono of these names appears in the “Universities Year-Book” which includes members of staffs of all the \iniversities of the British Empire, namely, that of Prof. Hunter, who occupies the chair of chemistry in the Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh. The president himself does not appear in the “Year-Book”, but wo believe he has associations with Cornell College, which is at Mount Vernon, Iowa, affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal Church, and not in any way to be confused with the great Cornell University at Ithaca, New York.

The Yearbook of the Universities of the Empire, 1932

BEFORE 1914 the only general directory of the staffs of the British universities was in the German yearbook of the learned world, “Minerva”. It was in 1912 that the late Sir George Parkin, then organising secretary of the Rhodes Trust, urged upon the members of the first congress of the universities of the British Empire that they ought to arrange for the setting up of a central office charged with the duty, among others, of producing a yearbook. The idea found acceptance and the “Universities Yearbook” has now become a valuable aid to intercourse in the sphere of science and higher education between the countries belonging to the British Commonwealth of nations.

Benefactions to Universities: British and American

ANY attempt to apply to such matters as gifts and bequests to universities the methods of scientific investigation is beset by peculiar difficulties. To begin with, no complete tabulated statistics of such benefactions are in existence. Many of them are not in the form of money, and their money value is not easily ascertainable; public announcements of gifts of houses and lands often do not indicate their value, and bequests are often subject to indeterminate charges, or in the form of residuary estates regarding which no further public announcement is made. The figures to be given in this article have, therefore, no pretensions to exactitude. Further, if we proceed to use available data, such as they are, for purposes of comparison, inference, and prediction, it is soon apparent that the flow of benefactions is as little subject to ascertainable laws and its course as difficult to predict as if it were “the gentle rain from heaven.” An illustration of this difficulty is afforded by comparing the benefactions, as recorded in the “Universities Yearbook,” of the years 1913–14 and 1923–24.

British University Statistics, 1921–22

THE most noticeable feature of the University Grants Committee's new blue-book is that it contains only 20 pages, whereas the returns for 1920–21 covered 391. The Committee proposes to issue a fuller publication on the old lines from time to time, say once in five years. In the intervals the public will be the more dependent for information on the Universities Yearbook. Oxford and Cambridge are not yet included in the returns, as their grants were “special emergency” and not regular grants. Excluding ex-Service students (8000 in 1921–22; 11,512 in 1920–21) the returns show, compared with those for the preceding year, increases of 2234, or 14 per cent., in the number of full-time men students, and 699, or 7 per cent., in the number of women students. The Committee points out that the numbers in England and Wales are about double what they were in 1913–14, and that the comparative smallness of the increase in Scotland (35 per cent.) was “no doubt due to the fact that the war found what may be called the university habit already firmly established there by long tradition, assisted since 1901 by the operations of the Carnegie Trust.”