Social Studies Teachers’ Perception of Junior High School Social Studies Curriculum in Berekum Municipality

The study aimed at determining teachers’ perception of Social Studies and how they teach the subject at Junior High Schools in Berekum Municipality of Brong Ahafo Region in Ghana. Four research questions guided the study: 1, what are the perceptions of Social Studies teachers about the nature of Social Studies? 2. What are the techniques employed by social studies teachers? 3. What is the nature and purpose of Social Studies curriculum at the Junior High School? 4. What is the significance of in-service training to the Social Studies teachers at the Junior High School? The main instrument used for the study was questionnaire. A questionnaire made up of forty (40) close-ended four-point Likert Scale Structured items were administered to hundred (100) Social Studies teachers in the selected twenty-five (25) Junior High Schools in Berekum Municipality. The questionnaire was divided into seven parts (A, B, C, D, E, F, & G). Areas examined include Meaning of Social Studies, Academic and professional Qualification, Scope and Goals of Social Studies, nature of Social studies Education and Techniques of Teaching Social Studies. The sampling technique for the study was both purposive and random sampling. The data obtained from the questionnaire suggest that in all, most teachers were homogenous in their assertion that the nature of social studies is that of citizenship education. This is consistent with Banks (1990) that citizenship education is the primary focus of social studies in the school curriculum which promotes desirable participatory citizenship and further confirmed by the position of Bar and Shermis, (1977) that social studies is an integration of experience concerning human relations for the purpose of citizenship education. It was also concluded that the purpose of Social Studies is to develop positive attitudes, values and skills of pupils. It is recommended that teachers continue to acquire relevant knowledge on making Social Studies more relevant to the needs of the citizenry and abreast themselves with teaching techniques that would enhance practical ways of learning and encourage the application of real- life situation. Keywords:JHS: Junior High School, MIT: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, CRDD; Curriculum Research and Development Division, NACC: National Association of the Curriculum and Courses, fCUBE: free Compulsory and Universal Basic Education DOI: 10.7176/JEP/12-11-03 Publication date: April 30th 202

Enhancing Urban Roads Maintenance in Ghana: Implications for Sustainable Urban Development

Enhancing maintenance of urban roads is a condition that helps to promote sustainable urban development. It helps to put roads in good shape which in turns provide several economic, social, and environmental benefits in urban areas. This paper sought to develop economically feasible road maintenance interventions that can be resorted to enhance the maintenance of urban roads in Wa Municipality (Ghana). Data on four road classes were used. These roads were Class A (major arterial road), class B (minor arterial roads), Class D (distributor roads) and Class E (access roads). The HDM-4 economic analysis model was used to process and analyse the data. The overall data analysis of the roads was made to cover a 30 year period starting 2013. The following treatment options were found as suitable to enhance the maintenance and sustainability of urban roads in the study area: Class A - "70mm thick overlay for every 11years at intervention level of 3.63 IRI", Class B - "40mm thin overlay for every 9 years at intervention level of 3.91 IRI", Class D - "40mm thin overlay for every 9 years at intervention level of 4.04 IRI", and Class E - "25mm surface dressing (resealing) for every 12 years at intervention level of 6.22 IRI". It is therefore recommended that public funds must be used judiciously with desirable portions allocated for timely road maintenance to enable the roads provide maximum economic and social benefits to the users. Keywords: Ghana, Wa Municipality, road maintenance, sustainable urban developmen

Improving Delivery of Construction Projects in Ghana's Cities: A Lean Construction Approach

The construction industry plays a vital role in the physical and socio-economic development of cities. However, poor execution and frequent breakdown of construction works such as roads and houses obstruct the overall development of cities since most social and economic activities depend of these projects. This paper sought to assess the extent to which lean construction principles are utilised in construction activities in Ghana’s cities and ways that these principles can be applied effectively to improve the delivery of construction works. The study concentrated in Accra, Kumasi and Sekondi-Takoradi cities whilst officials from the Metro Works Departments of the selected cities and various construction professionals constituted the target population. Questionnaire was the research instrument employed and Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficient Test was used to analyse the results. It was revealed that various lean construction principles such as value, value stream, flow, pull and perfection are poorly implemented with each of these principles having less than 50 percent rate of application. Barriers such as long lead time, poor procurement system and contracts, cultural and human factors, political influence, and lack of financial and management commitment were found to be responsible for that. To successfully apply the lean construction principles and enhance the sustainability of construction projects, measures such as benchmarking, process mapping, last planner procedures and continuous training of workers in the construction industry have been recommended

Left to their Fate? Effects of Mining on the Environment and Wellbeing of Residents in the Asutifi District, Ghana

Ghana experienced rapid liberalisation in the mining sector in the 1980s and 90s which led to the intensification of mining activities across mining zones in the country. This study therefore examined how operations of Newmont Ghana Gold Limited (NGGL) affect environmental justice in the Asutifi District. Using questionnaires, in-depth interview guides and observation checklist, data for the study were gathered from 217 randomly selected household respondents and 10 purposively selected key stakeholders. The results revealed widespread environmental injustices caused by mining that infringe on the rights of the residents of Asutifi District to live in safe and healthy environment they are entitled to. The paper recommends the application of international best practices by Newmont to reduce the adverse impacts of its activities on the environment and wellbeing of residents, and a revision of existing legislations on mining in Ghana in order to safeguard the wellbeing of communities affected by mining operations. Keywords: Mining, environmental justice, mining-fringe communities, stakeholders

Sustaining urban green spaces in Africa: a case study of Kumasi Metropolis, Ghana

Urban green spaces are useful natural assets that support the development of cities in diverse ways. However, statistics show that these spaces are under severe threat with the situation in Africa been critical. This study sought to assess the governance of urban green spaces and develop sustainable strategies to address problems affecting the development of urban green spaces in the context of Africa. The case study design was used and Kumasi Metropolis (Ghana) was selected as the study area. Different qualitative research techniques were employed whilst representatives of green spaces organisations and the local people constituted the study population. The study revealed that there is poor state of urban green spaces in Kumasi with factors such as urbanisation, poor enforcement of development controls, conflicting land ownership rights on green spaces, and lack of priority to green spaces being among the major causes for that. This problem was further exacerbated by complexity in the governance of green spaces, poor regulation of power among stakeholders, lack of community participation, and lack of consensus in decisions on green spaces. Sustainable strategies recommended to address the situation include controlling encroachment of green spaces, prioritising green spaces and building stronger collaborative governance for green spaces

Behavioural Dimension of the Growth of Informal Settlements in Kumasi city, Ghana

Informal settlements are among the major problems that confronts many cities in the world. Despite numerousefforts both at the international and local levels to address this problem, its existence keeps on rising. This paperused a theoretical approach to assess the growth of informal settlements in Kumasi, Ghana. It adapted the theoryof Planned Behaviour with informal settlement dwellers been the target population. A total of 238 informalsettlement dwellers were covered with questionnaires serving as the research instruments. It was found out thatinformal settlement dwellers have bad behaviour towards such settlements and this was underpinned by their badintentions about informal settlements. Low awareness of building regulations and poor perception of land useplanning were the issues that influenced their behaviour through their intensions. The major contribution of thispaper is that the growth of informal settlements is to a greater extent orchestrated by bad behaviour towards suchsettlements and that policy makers and international bodies should have a second thought on these settlementsand pay keen attention to human behaviours towards informal settlements.Keywords: urban; housing; informal settlements; behaviour; Kumasi, Ghan

Enhancing quality of life through the lens of green spaces: A systematic review approach

Improving citizens’ quality of life is a stated priority of many governments in both the global north and south.  However, efforts to achieve this often focus on socio-economic measures, with limited attention to the contributions of environmental variables such as green spaces.  This paper sought to bridge this knowledge gap by tracing the linkages between green spaces and quality of life, and how these connections can inform policy development in order to assist governments to achieve positive outcomes for quality of life.  The paper took a theoretical approach by utilising the systematic review method.  In all, 452 publications were included in this review, and rigorous content analysis was employed to retrieve relevant data.  Green spaces were found to provide various social, economic, and environmental benefits, which in turn improve physical, psychological, emotional, social, and material wellbeing of individuals and thus enhance quality of life.  It is therefore strongly recommended that conservation of green spaces should be integrated into national health, environmental and socio-economic policies in order to promote effective utilisation of green spaces to enhance citizens’ overall quality of life

Tax Morale and its Drivers: Empirical Evidence from Ghana

Using the binary logistic regression model, this study analyzes the statistical relationships between tax morale and its drivers as developed by the World Values Survey (WVS) on 1,552 respondents in Ghana between 2010 and 2014. The findings show that age has a significant positive relationship with tax morale, whereas participation in national-level elections also has a significant positive relationship with tax morale. Secondary education and above have a positive relationship with tax morale, but the relationship is negative below secondary education. One's employment status has a positive but insignificant relationship with tax morale, but income factors have a negative relationship. Confidence in government and parliament has a positive but insignificant relationship with tax morale. Finally, preference for the redistribution of wealth has a significant positive relationship with tax morale, while trust in others has an insignificant positive relationship with tax morale. The study provides country-specific drivers of tax morale (with expanded variables) and their relationships with tax morale in direct response to a suggestion by Daude, Gutiérrez, & Melguizo in their study in 2012 and as an improvement upon a similar study conducted in Ghana by Ibrahim, Musah, & Abdul-Hanan in 2015

Conceptualizing sustainability in the real estate development process

Operationalizing sustainability within the real estate development is a challenge as such development process is complex, multidisciplinary in nature and involves multiple agencies. The paper, therefore, aims at strengthening the conceptualization of sustainability within the real estate development process (REDP) to address this challenge effectively. Adopting the systematic review, 127 publications focused on sustainability and REDP were appraised. Focusing on the institutionalist viewpoints, sustainability was found to be a problem driven notion which is socially constructed. Therefore, it requires to be viewed within the larger picture of agency, structure and power in the context of economic, social and environmental uncertainties. These are found to be applied in the same way in the contemporary REDP literature too. On account of this, the paper suggests, conceptualizing sustainability within REDP needs the latter to take into account the agency dynamics of actors in the development process such as agency motivation (values) to offer a meaningful operationalization of the concept. In other words, this paper calls for significant stakeholder participation in the REDP which allows significant levels of economic, social and environmental values of actors to be brought forward to build consensus to determine as to what is sustainability within it

Towards sustainability: Overcoming the physical barriers to urban green spaces in Kumasi, Ghana

Conserving green spaces (parks, gardens, forest) in the physical landscape of cities is an action that has been identified as contributing to the sustainability of cities. However, to be able to conserve such spaces, some barriers need to be overcome, and this has not received much attention. This paper therefore provides measures to overcome the ‘physical’ barriers to urban green spaces in order to enhance the sustainability of such spaces in Ghana, using Kumasi as a case study. A qualitative research approach, 30 in-depth interviews, ten focus group discussions, archival data, and numerous observation sessions were utilized in the study. Kumasi city authorities, allied bodies on green spaces, opinion leaders, and residents of Kumasi constituted the study’s target population. It was discovered that conflicting ownership rights, encroachment, and poor maintenance are major physical barriers hampering the development of urban green spaces. To enhance the sustainability of urban green spaces, the study recommends that there should be the creation of additional parks and gardens, conversion of brownfield sites into green spaces, incorporation of quantitative standards into the provision of green spaces, and institutionalization of an award scheme on green spaces