Undergraduate Student Teachers’ Reflections on Their Teaching Practice Experience: Challenges Encountered and Responsive Solutions Employed

The study investigated undergraduate student teachers’ reflections on their teaching practice with a focus on challenges they experienced and how they reflectively responded or acted. Informed by both Experiential theory and Capital theory, the interpretive study employed a qualitative case study design. Twenty Bachelor of Education returning from their third year of teaching practice were purposively selected to represent school contexts typifying varied school contexts in Zimbabwe. Upholding ethical considerations, data were generated through interviews and focus group discussion. Thematic data analysis was used to organise data around recurring themes and their patterning constituents. Findings indicated that participants experienced challenges in respect of management of large classes, provisioning inclusive education, student indiscipline, teacher-teacher tensions and sour relations, and financial hardships. Responsive action in mitigating challenges faced evidenced reflective, experiential learning. Arguably, teacher educators should tap on student teachers’ experiences as capital input into programmes that prepare students for teaching practice. Keywords: Teaching Practice, student teacher, experiences, challenges, reflection, responsiveness. DOI: 10.7176/JEP/10-17-08 Publication date:June 30th 201

Ethnicity and Response to Drug Therapy

Hypercholesterolemia is a complex disorder presenting in different forms, including the familial form (FH), with varying underlying aetiology, and contributing substantially to coronary artery disease. Particularly, the FH underlies monogenic changes in genes involved in cholesterol synthesis and transport, including the low density lipoprotein receptor, proprotein convertase sublitisin/kexin type 9 and apolipoprotein B. However, hyperlipidemia is largely a complex interaction of changes in multiple genes with environmental factors, such as diet, overweight and obesity that are controllable by adopting healthy eating habits and exercise, which may vary by ethnicity. Diet alone is often not adequate to achieve the desired lipid lowering effect in individuals harbouring very high cholesterol levels, necessitating the use of lipid lowering medication or other forms of therapy. Antilipidemic drugs fall into (a) bile acid sequestrants (b) cholesterol absorption inhibitors, (c) 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitors, (d) fibric acid derivatives (e) proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 inhibitors, (f) miscellaneous agents and (g) drug combinations. Mutations in their various metabolizing enzymes, particularly the cytochrome P450 family, often lead to partially/non-functional, or even rapid metabolizing phenotypes, triggering great variations in the way individuals respond to drug therapy, which in turn depends on ethnicity. This may produce unexpected outcomes such as therapeutic failure, adverse side effects and toxicity in individuals of different ethnic origin. Hence, in-depth information of the impact of ethnicity on these relationships has the huge potential of achieving optimal quality use of drugs as well as improving the efficacy and safety of antilipidemic therapeutic agents

Impact of Financial Risk Management Practices on Financial Performance: Evidence from Commercial Banks in Botswana

The study examined the impact of financial risk management practices on the financial performance of commercial banks in Botswana. The study used Return on Asset and Return on Equity to measure financial performance. Inflation, Interest rates, total debt to total assets, total debt to total equity, total equity to total assets and loan deposit ratios were used as proxies for financial risk management. The research population was all the 10 commercial banks in Botswana and the study covered a period of 8 years from 2011 to 2018. This descriptive study sourced monthly secondary data from Bank of Botswana Financial Statistics database. Descriptive statistics, correlation and regression analyses were applied to analyze the data. The results from regression analysis showed that interest rates had a negative and significant impact on return on assets and on return on equity. On the other hand, total debt to total assets showed a negative and insignificant effect on return on assets. However, total debt to total assets, revealed a positive and insignificant effect on return on equity. The loan deposit ratio indicated a negative and significant impact on return on assets and on return on equity. Findings suggest that banks should strike a proper balance between financial risk management practices and financial performance by engaging in appropriate market, credit, and liquidity risk management practices that will ensure safety for their banks and yield positive profits

A conceptual safari: Africa and R2P

The Responsibility to Protect is a new human security paradigm that re-conceptualizes state sovereignty as a responsibility rather than a right. Its seminal endorsement by the 2005 World Summit has however not consolidated the intellectual parameters of the norm. Neither has it succeeded in galvanizing R2P’s doctrinal development; hence the January 2009 appeal by the UN secretary-general for the international community to operationalize R2P at the doctrinal level, in addition to at institutional and policy levels. R2P represents a critical stage in the debate on intervention for human protection purposes, but its key concepts require more exploration. Africa is a uniquely placed stakeholder in R2P on account of its disproportionate share of humanitarian crises and because Africans have played key roles in conceptualizing the norm. The continent should therefore not just off er an arena for, but indeed take the lead in, the conceptual journey that R2P’s doctrinal development requires.http://journals.berghahnbooks.com/reco/hb2013gv201

CAPITAL STRUCTURE AND ITS EFFECT ON FIRM PERFORMANCE: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON THE LISTED CONSUMER SERVICES SECTOR ORGANIZATIONS IN BOTSWANA

Discussions on an organizations optimum capital structure that would enhance organizational performance has been a topic of continued academic research. Such studies focused on the choice of debt/equity financing as well as the maintenance of an ideal debt ratio that will support improved firm performance. This paper examines the effect of capital structure on the financial performance of listed organizations in the Botswana Consumer Services Sector. Descriptive research design was used in the study. The research population included all the listed organizations in the consumer services sector in Botswana. The study covered the seven-year period of 2012-2018 and adopted a purposing sampling approach. Dependent variables were Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE), Tobin’s Q and Earnings per Share (EPS). The capital structure was measured by short-term debt to total assets, long-term debt to total assets, total debt to total assets and total debt to total equity. Control variables were liquidity and firm growth. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and regression analysis. Findings indicate that high-debt financing has a negative and significant effect on the financial performance of consumer services sector firms in Botswana. Total debt to total equity had a negative and significant effect on firms’ financial performance measures; ROA, ROE and Tobin’s Q. Long term debt to total assets also had a negative and significant effect on EPS. This may be the first study in Botswana on the topic and is expected to benefit the industry, managers, shareholders, investors and future researchers. JEL: D21; D22; G32  Article visualizations

The non-alignment of espoused theories of action to theories-in-use : sociocultural hurdles to provision of equitable educational opportunity for pregnant learners at South African conventional schools

On attainment of democracy, South Africa ratified several international conventions such as UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) Education for All (EFA) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), which all among other objectives, seek to attain gender equality in education. This study investigated how, despite their formal access to schooling, pregnant learners at two high schools in Vhembe district of South Africa faced challenges in actively participation in schooling. The study used key participant and focus group interviews to gather the views of 6 pregnant learners enrolled at two formal schools, 12 mainstream learners, and 12 teachers on the participation of pregnant learners in school curriculum activities. The study revealed that although the country’s bill of rights and the education policy on the management of pregnancy in schools created prospects for equal educational provision for pregnant teenagers in South Africa, on the ground, there were conservative socio-cultural beliefs, values and norms that militated against pregnant teenagers’ full educational participation and opportunity. The study therefore concluded that there is a split between official policy and practice, or espoused theories of action and the actual theories-in-use which negatively impacted on equal educational opportunity for enrolled pregnant learners in South African formal schools.http://www.journals.co.za/ej/ejour_genbeh.htmlhb201

Left ventricular global transcriptional profiling in human end-stage dilated cardiomyopathy

AbstractWe employed ABI high-density oligonucleotide microarrays containing 31,700 sixty-mer probes (representing 27,868 annotated human genes) to determine differential gene expression in idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). We identified 626 up-regulated and 636 down-regulated genes in DCM compared to controls. Most significant changes occurred in the tricarboxylic acid cycle, angiogenesis, and apoptotic signaling pathways, among which 32 apoptosis- and 13 MAPK activity-related genes were altered. Inorganic cation transporter, catalytic activities, energy metabolism and electron transport-related processes were among the most critically influenced pathways. Among the up-regulated genes were HTRA1 (6.9-fold), PDCD8(AIFM1) (5.2) and PRDX2 (4.4) and the down-regulated genes were NR4A2 (4.8), MX1 (4.3), LGALS9 (4), IFNA13 (4), UNC5D (3.6) and HDAC2 (3) (p<0.05), all of which have no clearly defined cardiac-related function yet. Gene ontology and enrichment analysis also revealed significant alterations in mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation, metabolism and Alzheimer's disease pathways. Concordance was also confirmed for a significant number of genes and pathways in an independent validation microarray dataset. Furthermore, verification by real-time RT-PCR showed a high degree of consistency with the microarray results. Our data demonstrate an association of DCM with alterations in various cellular events and multiple yet undeciphered genes that may contribute to heart muscle disease pathways

Democratisation of formal schooling for pregnant teenagers in South Africa and Zimbabwe : smoke and mirrors in policy

Policies that provide for equitable access to formal education by girls who could fall pregnant while in school are now common in Africa. However, the benefits of such policies to the affected girls vary from country to country. This paper critiques postcolonial legislative and policy frameworks that aim to open educational opportunities to pregnant teenagers in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Benchmarking with international conventions such as CEDAW, CRC, EFA and MDG, the paper analyses South Africa and Zimbabwe’s postcolonial legislations and policies that affect the educational access, participation and outcomes of pregnant and parenting girls of school going age. The paper posits that although the observed policy institutionalisation in both countries is an important measure in democratising formal schooling for girls who could fall pregnant while at school, that alone is inadequate without strategies aimed at confronting the negative traditional, social and cultural variables that militate against pregnant girls who choose to pursue their educational aspirations through the formal school system.http://www.journals.co.za/ej/ejour_genbeh.htmlhb201