Inservice training in Zimbabwe: an analysis of the relations amongst education and training, industry and state

An Occasional Paper on In-Service training in Zimbabwe.To a greater extent than many other industrialising countries, Zimbabwe has sought to ensure that externally funded research and study be pursued in ways that relate directly to their own development concerns. If a study is worth permitting, then it should seek as far as possible to address itself to priorities that are consistent with national needs and interests. This implies that if a study is in some measure to serve these needs, there must be a process of renegotiation with the authorities so that the research agenda can be localised. An essential result of this process of localisation must be a reporting back both to the policy community and to the research community during the course of the study. In the case of this present research, this reporting took two forms. At the end of the first three weeks of work, during July 1987, a seminar on results was arranged at the Zimbabwe Institute for Development Studies (ZIDS), and copies of the preliminary paper were provided to the Ministry of Labour and Ministry of Education. At the end of the second short trip of two weeks in July 1988, two seminars were arranged. One involved key training directors and training experts from the private sector, including several of the largest enterprises in Zimbabwe. The second was a meeting organised by the University of Zimbabwe’s Faculty of Education, to which the Ministry of Higher Education had invited a number of its senior personnel concerned with the area of in-service education and training

Education in Sub-Saharan Africa: the bank policy report as a research project

A ZJER World Bank Report on education in Sub-Saharan Africa.This article considers the adequacy of the research base underlying recommendations in the Bank Report and the context within which this project was undertaken. It argues that the Report must be viewed in the broader context of the Bank’s macro- economic structural adjustment policies and considers the extent to which several of the Report’s major policy recommendations are prefigured in the Bank’s Initiating Briefing of 1985. Overall, the effort is to be complimented for the breadth of the study, the openness of its presentation, and its ability to question positions that the Bank had espoused in the past. In some areas, notably recommendations regarding the impact of books and distance education materials, the research base presented in the Report seems insufficient. The study is also faulted for the limited use of African scholars. Finally, this article considers the extent to which events in the continent may be outpacing the research project. For example, the informal ''privatization" of education within the formal system and the possibility that reforms in educational finance, coupled with a perceived decline in the private returns to education, may move in the direction of threatening past progress toward universal primary education

Editorial: The many faces of sustainability in education expansion, innovation and economic growth

Sustainability is a recent and very slippery concept, and in this Special Issue of NORRAG NEWS it is applied to a whole range of its possible meanings. But as often in NORRAG NEWS, we shall seek to imbue its present meanings with some sense of history, by reviewing the way that notions of sustainability, sustained commitments, and sustainable financing come increasingly to feature in the main policy papers on education

Primary schools in Kenya: some critical constraints on their effectiveness

This paper focuses on the CPE examination and the effect that it has had on primary school teaching and the students within the schools. The paper is divided into five sections. After the introduction, the second section considers the nature of the CPE and its effect on teaching both examinable and non-examinable subjects in the upper primary school. The third section examines the repeater phenomenon and describes the various methods of repealing. The fourth section considers some of the effects of the presence of repeaters within both the primary and secondary school systems, as well as the CPE as a method for selecting students for secondary school. The final section makes recommendations concerning (a) reform of the CPE (b) reformed CPE and repeaters, (c) administrative reform and repeaters, (d) the need for a general policy on repeaters, and (e) policy towards primary school teachers. The evidence is drawn mainly from Rift Valley Province

Mandating English Proficiency for College Instructors: States\u27 Responses to The TA Problem

This Note examines the background, provisions, effects, and constitutionality of state legislation mandating English proficiency assessment for college instructors. Such legislation responds to complaints about the comprehensibility of international instructors--particularly teaching assistants--at U.S. colleges and universities. U.S. universities employ large numbers of international instructors in scientific, technical, and business fields. Such employment is only one aspect of a broader U.S. importation of scientific and technical talent. This Note first considers the background and legitimacy of complaints about international instructors, and then examines the background and details of specific state provisions. It discusses the statutes\u27 effects and particular concerns they raise, including the possibility that they violate constitutional and statutory prohibitions against national origin discrimination. The Note concludes with recommendations for universities and legislatures

Education, skills, sustainability and growth: complex relations

The global education agenda, embedded in the Education for All (EFA) Goals, and the Millennium Development Goals, has emphasised the importance of reaching EFA rather than sustaining this achievement. As a corollary, the emphasis for external aid has also been on increasing aid to secure EFA rather than on the dangers of aid dependency in securing and sustaining EFA. The international architecture in support of education for sustainable development appears to have little interest in analysing these tensions between the pursuit of these rights-based EFA Goals, on the one hand, and the kind of economic growth and macro-economic environment that would be necessary to sustain their achievement

Creating a Sustainable Scholarly Communication System

The current process of scholarly publication is widely regarded as unsustainable. Ensuring that scholarly information remains accessible to the world's scholars will require the work of a consortium of major research universities. A global consortium of research universities would have the power to negotiate a mutually beneficial relationship with cooperating publishers including permitting the open publication of preprints in disciplinary archives. This consortium could be built around a shared global electronic library constructed from components managed by individual cooperating institutions. These components built on Open Archives Initiative (OAI) compliant servers using open software (e.g. DSpace and EPrints) are currently installed at many universities. The shared library could look like an extension to an individual member's library and contain a full range of materials certified in a variety of ways by contributing institutions. In addition to publishing books, articles, course materials, videos and databases, universities could individually or cooperatively host open and subscription-funded journals in digital form. They could support open, discipline focused preprint archives and encourage faculty to publish in journals that permitted this. This system would help integrate and coordinate multiple efforts to promote open publication and enable open and not-for-profit publishers and university libraries to become partners in the scholarly enterprise, each responsible for a certain phase of the process

Vondel's 'Adam in Ballingschap' and its relationship to Grotius' 'Adamus Exul'

Ch. I. Grotius and Vondel chose the dramatic form for the embodiment of their Idea because drama had the widest appeal of those art-forms claiming the dual function of edification and Instruction. Ch.II (i) The account of the Fall in Genesis contains explicitly or implicitly all the elements required of a tragedy by the Humanist philologists interpretation of Aristotle and Horace. (ii) Senecan influence in Dutch drama is mainly attributable to the preference of Latin to Greek as the language used by the scholars end to the popularity of Seneca's rhetorical style andmoralising manner among those who inherited the Rederijkers' tradition. Ch. III. *ADAMUS EXUL* The play fails to achieve the balance necessary to form an integrated impression of tragedy because the predominant power and mood is of evil. Grotius fails to co-ordinate his art and scholarship. Ch.IV. "ADAM IN BALLINGSCHAP" (i) at the Literal Level. Its greatest achievement is its flawless structure in which the power of supernatural good and evil are perfectly balanced and reach a culminating point in the spiritual conflict of one man. (ii) the Theological Level. Vondel's views on the Cosmos, the soul and body, the mind, God in nature, obedience, free will and the Redemption are considered with reference to Grotius. (iii) the Symbolic Level. There are two important symbolic allegories to which most of the individual symbols contribute: God as the Sun and Light, Lucifer as Darkness; Adam as the Soul and Eve as the Body. Ch.V. "ADAM IN BALLINGSCHAP" is of all Vondel's drama the fullest externalisation of his spiritual life for in it are the red together all the aspects of virtue and sin expressed severally in his other plays. Conclusion. There can be no question of more than a superficial influence of Grotius' play on Vondel's.<p

Lactase Activity in Steers Fed Large Amounts of Dried Whey

Large amounts of dried whole whey (86% of concentrate mix, 60% of total dry matter intake) were fed to four Holstein steers in place of corn and soybean meal in the control diet to evaluate the extent and site of lactose digestion in the ruminant\u27s digestive tract. Diets consisted of 70% of the dry matter as concentrate mix and 30% as corn silage fed ad libitum as a total mixed ration. Weight gains and dry matter intakes were similar for steers fed dried whole whey or control diets. Samples of rumen contents from steers fed dried whole whey contained more butyrate, less propionate, and less ammonia than from animals fed control diets. No lactose was detected in the rumen or small intestine indicating that it was completely digested. Lactase activity per gram of intestinal tissue was significantly greater in two of fifteen t issue segments and numerically greater in the proximal third of small intestine of steers fed the control diet. Lactase activity per gram tissue protein was similar for both treatment groups throughout the small intestine. Lactase activity was greatest in the proximal third of the small intestine with little activity in the distal third of the small intestine irregardless of diet. Lactase activity of intestinal contents was similar for both treatments, being highest in the duodenum and lowest in the ileum and large intestine. Since no lactase apparently escaped the rumen, differences in intestinal lactase may not be expected. Lactase activity may have been affected by the amount of total carbohydrates entering the small intestine rather than just the amount of lactose entering. Digestibilities of whey diets were higher for ash and numerically higher for energy and organic matter, while digestibilities of acid detergent fiber and cellulose was numerically lower. Cattle have the capability to consume large amounts of dried whey without digestive disorders or reduced rates of gain