Issues in understanding scholar exclusion: interpreting the reason for dropout and repetition in Mozambique. The case of 1st cycle of general secondary school in Maputo-City (1999-2005)

ABSTRACT Key words: Dropout, repetition, scholar exclusion, school quality, General Secondary School, Mozambique. This study is a school-based research into the reasons for dropout and repetition in Mozambique. The research methodology is of a qualitative nature, which enabled the exploration of relevant themes, processes and patterns that have characterized the educational process in Mozambique, especially reasons that led to repetition and dropout, during the period between 1999 and 2005. The main reasons could be found in the whole process of teaching and learning; outdated classroom pedagogy; insufficient student participation and shortage of textbooks or teachers materials; and low teachers salaries. In addition, poverty causes many students to drop out. The main conclusion is that higher levels of repetition and dropout have cost implications, inflating enrolments and adding to total costs without necessarily leading to an improvement in learners’ outcomes. Recommendations include a redefinition of the model of secondary education in accordance with the new demands of the labour market

Mapping out the path of teacher education development in Mozambique: a case study of the pedagogic University (1985-2012)

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Division of Education Leadership and Policy Studies School of Education University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg January 2016This study explores the role of the Pedagogic University of Mozambique in preparing teachers for the national education system in Mozambique. Its main aim is to develop a retrospective and interpretive analysis of a university-based teacher education system at the university, along with its legacy and institutional changes. Exploring a case study of the Pedagogic University of Mozambique, it examines how the project of teacher education has developed at the university, in terms of the outcomes of its stated vision and mission as well as the content, form, assumptions and expectations inherent in the kind of learning and teaching that it delivers. In providing an overview of the activities of the University, it is necessary to take into consideration the legacy and changes that have occurred in the conception, organisation and delivery of the university’s teaching programmes. The study also presents and analyses the experiences and perceptions of the academic staff, fourth-year students, school principals, and officials from the Ministry of Education and Culture. It is a qualitative study, which is developed through a literature review, documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews. The study employs the concept of a “continuum of teacher learning” and applies it to a discussion of professional education supported by Lortie (1975); Britzman (1991); Villegas- Reimers; (2003); Schwille and Dembélé (2007); Morrow (2007); Conway, Murphy, Rath and Hall (2009). It argues that the Pedagogic University has been developing an ideal model which takes into account the socioeconomic conditions prevailing in Mozambique. This involves changing from a consecutive model to a concurrent programme model, in which a professional component is provided at the same time as a general component. The programmes are delivered in an integrated way, so that subject content and pedagogic content are delivered simultaneously from the first year until the end of the course. Another characteristic of this ideal model is that the same programmes are delivered to students who are already teachers and students without any teaching experience. Many factors limit the major mission of the institution, and these are described in detail. They include the absence of a national teacher education development framework, budget constraints and a lack of financial resources at institutional level. The study argues that institutional responses to these constraints ought to be understood within the context of universities worldwide. They have resulted in the University gradually becoming a “pedagogic” institution in name only: it has moved from being completely devoted to the field of education to becoming a university that delivers a variety of programmes, including those that are perceived to be most marketable. The study also covers the emergence of careerism among students, as well as the installation of some sort of distraction among the academic staff competing for extra hours in the new programmes in order to increase their sources of income. One of the major conclusions reached by this study is that the changes have become inevitable, mostly because of the dominance of a neoliberal economic agenda in one of the very poorest countries in the world. Within a financially fraught context, such changes are inevitable. Students are unable to pay the rising cost of fees for teacher education programmes, aside from the fact that teaching is not a popular profession and studying education is not usually the students’ first choice. Key words: teacher education development; continuum of teacher learning; secondary school teachers; concurrent and consecutive models; curricular transformations; Mozambique

New bounds for Tsallis parameter in a noncommutative phase-space entropic gravity and nonextensive Friedmann equations

In this paper, we have analyzed the nonextensive Tsallis statistical mechanics in the light of Verlinde's formalism. We have obtained, with the aid of a noncommutative phase-space entropic gravity, a new bound for Tsallis nonextensive (NE) parameter (TNP) that is clearly different from the ones present in the current literature. We derived the Friedmann equations in a NE scenario. We also obtained here a relation between the gravitational constant and the TNP.Comment: 15 pages. Final version to appear in Physica

Initial Notes for a Physical Education of the Future: A Transdisciplinary Perspective

Since the 1960s, there has been a discussion in the Physical Education (P.E) academic field, concerning its epistemological basis, initially in the United States. In Brazil, critical thinking towards P.E. has as its main argument that it is reductionistic since the object of study is the physical body and practices, disregarding a humanistic holistic approach. A shift began due to the proposal of a Portuguese philosopher, Manuel Sergio, in the 80s entitled Human Motricity Science. This article aims to gather information about the epistemological changes that PE has gone through, subsidizing the field with a new perspective, based on complexity and transdisciplinary thinking in which the conception of human corporeality/subjectivity being a milestone of Physical Education in the future

Electrochemical studies on the corrosion of brass in seawater under anaerobic conditions

This paper reports an electrochemical study on the corrosion of brass in deoxygenated nonbuffered and buffered natural and artificial seawater solutions under anaerobic conditions. Cyclic voltammograms of brass and copper in natural seawater (NSW) and artificial seawater (ASW) were obtained in the passive and transpassive potential regions. The corrosion resistance of brass in natural and artificial seawater was evaluated, and opencircuit potentials were recorded over exposure period of 1 week. Brass samples from 3-month exposures in deoxygenated nonbuffered ASW and NSW, under opencircuit potential, have been imaged by scanning electron microscopy, and the elemental composition of the corrosion products was obtained by energy dispersive spectrometry analysis. It has been concluded that, under anaerobic conditions, the aggressivity of NSW is higher, with brass being less resistant to corrosion than copper, and that buffer contributes to reduce the aggressivity of both medi

Estratégias de Enunciação na Construção de um Filme: o caso de Adaptação, de Charlie Kaufman

Este artigo descreve os resultados de um trabalho maior que realizamos no ano de 2009. Nosso trabalho teve por objetivo mostrar como se realizam certas categorias da enunciação num texto fílmico. Para fins analíticos, embasamo-nos na Semiótica Discursiva, e elegemos como corpus o filme Adaptação (2002). A teoria da enunciação diz que o ato da enunciação é único. No entanto, o enunciador de Adaptação subverte essa teoria e “congela” a enunciação no próprio enunciado, produzindo o efeito de que, cada vez que se vê o filme, se vê sua enunciaçã

Multi-q Pattern Classification of Polarization Curves

Several experimental measurements are expressed in the form of one-dimensional profiles, for which there is a scarcity of methodologies able to classify the pertinence of a given result to a specific group. The polarization curves that evaluate the corrosion kinetics of electrodes in corrosive media are an application where the behavior is chiefly analyzed from profiles. Polarization curves are indeed a classic method to determine the global kinetics of metallic electrodes, but the strong nonlinearity from different metals and alloys can overlap and the discrimination becomes a challenging problem. Moreover, even finding a typical curve from replicated tests requires subjective judgement. In this paper we used the so-called multi-q approach based on the Tsallis statistics in a classification engine to separate multiple polarization curve profiles of two stainless steels. We collected 48 experimental polarization curves in aqueous chloride medium of two stainless steel types, with different resistance against localized corrosion. Multi-q pattern analysis was then carried out on a wide potential range, from cathodic up to anodic regions. An excellent classification rate was obtained, at a success rate of 90%, 80%, and 83% for low (cathodic), high (anodic), and both potential ranges, respectively, using only 2% of the original profile data. These results show the potential of the proposed approach towards efficient, robust, systematic and automatic classification of highly non-linear profile curves.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure

Stability Conditions For a Noncommutative Scalar Field Coupled to Gravity

We consider a noncommutative scalar field with a covariantly constant noncommutative parameter in a curved space-time background. For a potential as a noncommutative polynomial it is shown that the stability conditions are unaffected by the noncommutativity, a result that is valid irrespective whether space-time has horizons or not.Comment: 12 pages. Version to match the one to appear in Physics Letters

A mãe é guarani, o pai é kaingang: história, cultura e identidade a partir da terra indígena kaingang jamã tÿ tãnh

Desde meados da década de 1970 os povos indígenas no Brasil vêm se consolidando enquanto atores políticos de significativa envergadura no contexto nacional. Algumas de suas principais conquistas estão preconizadas nos artigos 231 e 232 da Constituição Federal brasileira de 1988. Neste ínterim, ao longo dos últimos trinta anos também ocorreu no Brasil uma renovação nos estudos sobre História Indígena. Esta renovação funda-se nos movimentos reivindicatórios por parte dos grupos indígenas e também na incorporação pela História de conceitos de áreas afins como a antropologia e a sociologia, que permitiram compreender melhor as lógicas próprias destas sociedades. Neste contexto, os processos de etnicidade e rearticulação étnica de coletivos indígenas pelo país passaram a chamar atenção de diferentes setores da sociedade nacional, de modo que muitos coletivos que realizaram processos de etnogênese recentemente passaram a ter suas identidades indígenas questionadas, sendo muitas vezes (des) qualificados como falsos índios. No presente trabalho analisou-se as narrativas de anciãs (aõs) da comunidade Kaingang Jamã Tÿ Tãnh, situada no município de Estrela/RS, a fim de compreender as elaborações destas pessoas a respeito da constituição da comunidade indígena. Para tanto, empreendeu-se investigações a partir de fontes orais e escritas, com base no referencial teórico da Antropologia Histórica, que foi mais amplamente utilizado no Brasil para os estudos entre os “índios no Nordeste”. Aponta-se como alguns dos principais resultados que o coletivo indígena Jamã Tÿ Tãnh é formado por descendentes de três mulheres com um mesmo homem, naturais de zonas rurais entre as bacias hidrográficas dos rios Pardo e Taquari-Antas. Todas estas pessoas identificam-se como descendentes de indígenas que desde tempos imemoriais circulavam pelo território em questão. Notou-se ainda que durante a segunda metade do século XIX havia uma significativa presença indígena nos espaços mencionados, entretanto, muitas destas pessoas foram arbitrariamente desapropriadas de suas posses coletivas e postos em situação de indigência, sob a alegação de que seriam “índios misturados” ou “ex-índios”. Tendo em vista a existência de situação análoga a esta, conhecida como Terra Indígena Borboleta, situada entre os municípios de Salto do Jacuí e Espumoso/RS, o presente trabalho explicita aproximações entre estas comunidades, sobretudo no que diz respeito aos processos de territorilização e etnogênese, que em ambos os casos difere dos processos mais frequentemente associados aos Kaingang.Since the mid-1970s, indigenous peoples in Brazil have been consolidating themselves while significant political actors in the national context. Some of its main achievements are advocated in articles 231 and 232 of the Brazilian Federal Constitution of 1988. At this point, over the last thirty years, there has also been a review of studies on indigenous history in Brazil. This renewal is based on the movements claime by indigenous groups. And also in the incorporation by the History of concepts from related areas such as anthropology and sociology, which allow us to better understand the logics used by these societies. In this context, the processes rearticulation of indigenous collectives across the country have been draw attention from different sectors of national society, so that many collectives that recently realized processes of ethnogenesis been questioned by their indigenous identities, been called as false Indians. In the present work we analyzed the narratives of elders from the Kaingang Jamã Tÿ Thnh community, located in the municipality of Estrela / RS, in order to understand the elaborations of these people regarding the constitution of the indigenous community. Oral and written sources were used. The theoretical framework of Historical Anthropology was used, which in Brazil was widely used for the study of "indigenous groups in the northeast region". Some of the main results show that this indigenous collective is initially formed by descendants of three women with the same man, all from rural areas between the Pardo and Taquari-Antas river basins. All these people identify themselves as descendants of indigenous people who since time immemorial circulated through this territory. It was also noted that during the second half of the nineteenth century there was a significant indigenous presence in the spaces mentioned, however, many of these people were arbitrarily dispossessed of their collective possessions and put in a situation of indigence, on the grounds that they would be “mixed Indians”. or "former Indians". Considering the existence of a similar situation, known as the Butterfly Indigenous Land, located between the municipalities of Salto do Jacuí and Espumoso/RS, this paper also presents some approximations between both situations

Geologia das quadrículas Dom Joaquim e parte sul de Ribeirão da Prata-Borda Leste da Serra do Espinhaço Meridional - MG

Resum