Effective Supervision and Administration: A Panacea to Poor Quality Assurance in Vocational and Technical Education in Nigeria

Supervision, administration and quality assurance in vocational and technical education are three widely discussed concepts in any specialized skill-focused education. Ineffective or absence of supervision and administration has been discovered by policymakers as an inhibition to the realization of goals of vocational and technical education and its quality assurance. The purpose of this paper is to explore effective supervision and administration as a panacea to quality assurance in vocational and technical education in Nigeria; to examine the relevance of effective supervision and administration to vocational and technical education. The paper highlighted concepts and challenges of vocational and technical education, outcome of ineffective supervision and administration, quality assurance and its impact in vocational and technical education. This paper concluded that since the attainment of rapid technological and socioeconomic development of any developed economy is based primarily on Vocational and Technical Education, the supervision and administration of this type of education therefore, has to be effectively executed. Suggestions were made to this effect. Keywords: Effective, Supervision, Administration, Panacea, Poor, Quality Assurance, Vocational and Technical Education, Nigeria. DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-16-18 Publication date:June 30th 2020

Indigenous mental healthcare and human rights abuses in Nigeria: The role of cultural syntonicity and stigmatization

BackgroundIndigenous mental healthcare using traditional non-western methods termed “unorthodox approaches” has been observed in Nigeria historically. This has been largely due to a cultural preference for spiritual or mystical rather than biomedical formulations of mental disorder. Yet, there have been recent concerns about human rights abuses within such treatment settings as well as their tendency to perpetuate stigmatization.AimThe aim of this review was to examine the cultural framework for indigenous mental healthcare in Nigeria, the role of stigmatization in its utilization and interrogate the issues of human rights abuses within a public mental health context.MethodsThis is a non-systematic narrative review of published literature on mental disorders, mental health service utilization, cultural issues, stigma, and indigenous mental healthcare. Media and advocacy reports related to human rights abuses in indigenous mental health treatment settings were also examined. International conventions on human rights and torture, national criminal legislation, constitutional provisions on fundamental rights and medical ethics guidelines relevant to patient care within the country were examined in order to highlight provisions regarding human rights abuses within the context of care.ResultsIndigenous mental healthcare in Nigeria is culturally syntonic, has a complex interaction with stigmatization and is associated with incidents of human rights abuses especially torture of different variants. Three systemic responses to indigenous mental healthcare in Nigeria include: orthodox dichotomization, interactive dimensionalization, and collaborative shared care. Conclusions: Indigenous mental healthcare is endemic in Nigeria. Orthodox dichotomization is unlikely to produce a meaningful care response. Interactive dimensionalization provides a realistic psychosocial explanation for the utilization of indigenous mental healthcare. Collaborative shared care involving measured collaboration between orthodox mental health practitioners and indigenous mental health systems offers an effective as well as cost-effective intervention strategy. It reduces harmful effects of indigenous mental healthcare including human rights abuses and offers patients a culturally appropriate response to their problems</jats:sec

ASSESSMENT OF NUTRITIONAL PROPERTIES OF FERMENTED AND UNFERMENTED SEED OF CISSUS POPULNAE FROM NIGER STATE, NIGERIA

The assessment of nutritional properties of fermented (for 24 and 48 h) and unfermented seeds of Cissus populnae from Niger State, Nigeria were determined using standard analytical methods. The proximate parameters determined were moisture, protein, ash, fat, fiber and carbohydrate.  The ranges of these values were from 12.44±0.03 (unfermented) to 15.21±0.51 (fermented for 48 h), 4.23±0.16 (unfermented) to 5.04±0.15% (fermentation at 48 h), 2.00±0.05 (unfermented) to 3.10±0.45 (fermented for 48 h), 7.20±0.60 (unfermented) to 9.01±0.11), 4.02±0.23% (fermentation for 48 h) to 7.00±0.06 (unfermented) and 63.62±0.46 (fermented at 48 h) to 67.13±0.53 (unfermented) % for the moisture, crude fiber, ash, crude protein, crude fat and crude carbohydrate contents respectively. The energy values obtained were 1522.61±0.21, 1446.82±0.33 and 1383.45±0.50 Kcal/100g for the unfermented, fermentation for 24 and 48 h respectively. From the results of this study, fermentation generally improved the mineral contents of the samples and decreased their anti-nutrient contents. Thus, large-scale production of fermented Cissus populnae seeds will be a valuable source of nutrition to man and his animals

UNIVERSAL DESIGN FRAMEWORK FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTABLE ARCHITECTURAL STUDIOS FOR LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

Issues arising from the general problem of the inaccessibility of the built environment to people with disabilities (PWDs), have led to a paradigm shift from design approaches aimed at narrow code compliance, to design ideologies aimed at producing usable facilities and environments to meet the needs of everyone, particularly PWDs. One of such approaches is Universal Design (UD), a framework for designing products, buildings, and environments to be accessible and usable by everyone. Consequently, guidelines have been developed for many products and environments, including learning environments, in line with the UD principles. However, these models are considered inadequate to fully address design requirements of architectural studios in learning environments. This study developed a design framework for developing adaptable architectural studios, in line with UD parameters and peculiar needs of students in a traditional and digital studio learning environment. The study adopted a qualitative research approach. Observation and systematic review of relevant literature were used to collect data, which were coded according to themes for easy analysis for the development of the framework. Illustrations were employed to present the findings for clarity and easy understanding. The study outcome is a useful design guide for architects, an education material for teachers and students, and a UD repository reference material for researchers to work with and build upon as we work towards making our world more accessible and usable to all

The frequency of suicidal ideation in asthma and the relationship to asthma control and depression

Background: There is considerable evidence from clinical and epidemiological studies linking asthma to an increased risk of suicide.Objective: To provide preliminary data among Nigerians on the frequency and characteristics of suicidal ideation in asthma.Methods: A cross-sectional study among consecutively consenting asthma patients attending the respiratory clinic of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital in Lagos, Nigeria, over a six month period. Level of asthma control was assessed using the Asthma Control Test (ACT). The Beck Scale for Suicidal Ideation (BSI) and the Suicide items of Beck's Depressive Inventory (BDI) were used to obtain data on suicidal ideation and the risk of depression respectively. Correlation and regression analysis were performed.Results: Eighty one (66.7% women) adult asthma patients participated. Their mean age was 46.3±13.0 years, mean ACT score was 18.7±4.3 (maximum score 25) and mean BDI score was 3.6 ± 4.0 (maximum score 63). There was a significant negative relationship between the ACT score and the BDI score (p&lt;0.001). The mean BSI score was 3.0±2.2. The frequency of suicidal ideation was 7.4% (BSI score &gt;1). The mean BDI score was significantly higher among participants with suicidal ideation compared to those without suicidal ideation (6.8±5.2 versus 3.4±3.8, p=0.04). Among the participants with suicidal ideation, the BDI score and ACT score were negatively and insignificantly correlated to the BSI score (Pearson's correlation= -0.26, p=0.62), (Pearson's correlation=-0.03, p=0.96) respectively.Conclusion: The frequency of suicidal ideation among patients with asthma is modest. Participants with suicidal ideation were more symptomatic for depression and most had poor asthma control. This highlights the need for increased recognition and treatment of co-morbid psychiatric illness among asthma patients.Keywords: Asthma, suicide, Nigeria, comorbidity, depressi

Degradabilidad ruminal comparativa de forrajes, subproductos y corteza de baobab en la oveja

La velocidad e intensidad de la degradabilidad fueron mayores (p<0,01) en residuos de trigo (80,7 p.100), Stylosanthes hamata (70,9 p.100) y Tephrosia bracteolata (54,1 p.100), que en la corteza de baobab (Adansonia digitata) (27,7 p.100) y salvado de arroz (26,5 p.100) y aumentaron (p<0,01) con el tiempo de incubacion

Degradabilidad ruminal comparativa de forrajes, subproductos y corteza de baobab en la oveja

La velocidad e intensidad de la degradabilidad fueron mayores (p<0,01) en residuos de trigo (80,7 p.100), Stylosanthes hamata (70,9 p.100) y Tephrosia bracteolata (54,1 p.100), que en la corteza de baobab (Adansonia digitata) (27,7 p.100) y salvado de arroz (26,5 p.100) y aumentaron (p<0,01) con el tiempo de incubacion

Influence of Processing Techniques on the Nutritional and Anti-Nutritional Properties of Pigeon Pea (Cajanus Cajan)

Pigeon pea is a perennial legume shrub often grown in a wide range of soil textures, from sandy soils to heavy clays. The study therefore investigated the effect of processing methods on the nutritional and anti-nutritional properties of pigeon pea. Pigeon peas were subjected to different processing methods which were sun drying and milling which serves as the control (sample A) soaking for 24 h, sun drying and milling (sample B) soaking for 12 h, de-hulling, sun drying and milling (sample C) and sprouting for 120 h, sun drying and milling (sample D). The proximate composition of pigeon pea showed that crude protein ranged from 16.74 to 38.43% with a significant increase in sample A, C and D while the crude fat that ranged from 11.80 to 24.61% showed significant difference in the samples. The moisture content which ranged from 7.91 to 13.65% is significantly highest in sample D. The anti-nutritional composition of the samples showed that phytic acid ranged from 5.27 to 7.61% with a significant decrease in sample D. The tannin content ranged from 11.52 to 14.72 mg/100g while protease inhibitor is 5.09 to 7.60%. The study however showed that traditional processing techniques significantly reduced the anti-nutritional properties