An Assessment of Stakeholders’ Satisfaction on Financial Control Performance in Private Universities in Tanzania

The University of Arusha (UoA) is the church University owned by Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) church in Tanzania.  The UoA was having problems in some of its financial controls (FCs) and problems on the way how these controls were implemented.  Due to these problems, the researcher assessed the UoA workers’ satisfaction on the university FC performance.  In conducting this study, both primary and secondary data were collected and used; primary data were collected from a representative sample of forty (40) workers through questionnaires and interviews.The study revealed that, the UoA workers were dissatisfied with the university FCs performance by 47.5% and it was further revealed that, workers’ age seemed to be a factor influenced satisfaction level (SL) with the probability level of 0.031 or 3.1 percent.  This study is very significant to the UoA management, workers, and other interested parties because it added knowledge on problems of FC performance facing the university and ways of solving them.  Therefore, based on the research findings, the university should understand what stakeholders (workers) are expecting from the university FC system and the way how FCs are implemented.  The university needs to rectify some of its FCs and the way how FCs are implemented so as to satisfy its workers while improving its financial position. Keywords: Assessment, Financial Controls, Stakeholders, Satisfaction Level, and Private Universit

South African physical science teachers’ classroom language for enhanced understanding of science concepts

A Research Report submitted to Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Science. Johannesburg July 2016.The study reported in this research report was motivated by the continuous poor performance by South African learners in physical sciences. This poor performance is evidenced by the below expectations year in, year out grade 12 physical science final examinations results. Several factors may be contributing to this poor performance such as lack of resources (both financial and human resources), overcrowding, ineffective teaching methods, and the language of teaching and learning. The assertion for this study was that teacher’s oral classroom instructional language impacts on learning of classroom science. The study, hence investigated how South African physical science teachers use their oral instructional language to enhance the understanding of science concepts. The raw data was gathered through naturalistic observation and video recording of physical science lessons by two participant South African physical science teachers drawn from two different high schools located in the Gauteng Province. The two school were chosen on the basis of their matric results that are also below average. Follow up educator interviews were also conducted and video recorded. The videos of the lesson observations and educator interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed. The study revealed that the participant educators were not explaining the meanings of all technical and non-technical words that were used in the observed lessons. Teachers did not distinguish between the everyday meanings and scientific meanings of non-technical words used. Participant educators did not seek and make use of the participant learners’ pre-instructional meanings of non-technical words to help learners understand better the new scientific meanings of these words. One of the participant educators did not engage learners in the ongoing lesson talk. The findings of this study will sensitise physical science teachers to important role of their oral instructional language to successful learning of science concepts in the classroom. This might help in ensuring science teachers use their oral instructional language effectively to enhance understanding of science concepts, by adopting teaching approaches that facilitate shared meanings of vocabulary used in science classrooms. Key words: technical and non-technical words, instructional language, science language.LG201

Effectiveness in Tax Payment by Rural Micro Enterprises in Tanzania

Taxation in Tanzania started from colonial era, it is a very important source of government revenue; hence it enables the government to finance its functions including administrative, social, protective, and development functions.  Despite the fact that, tax is compulsory payment that enables the government to finance its various activities, many residents still do not like paying tax. Therefore, this study assessed effectiveness in tax payment by rural micro enterprises in Meru district in Tanzania.The study collected and used both primary and secondary data.  Primary data were collected from a sample of 200 respondents including tax assessors, business owners, and employed managers through questionnaires and interviews.  The study revealed that, there was no effectiveness in tax payment by rural micro enterprises in Meru district in Tanzania.  It was recommended for the government through TRA to provide taxpayer education and training, lowering the tax rates, creating friendly relationship with tax payers, removal of tax incentives or exclusion among big corporations, and good governance of tax collected. Keywords: Effectiveness, Micro Enterprises, Tax, Tax Complianc

Assessing the Impact of Efalizumab on Nail, Scalp and Palmoplantar Psoriasis and on Quality of Life: Results from a Multicentre, Open-label, Phase IIIb/IV Trial

This post-approval, open-label trial (n = 1266) assessed the efficacy of efalizumab, administered in accordance with the European label at that time, in patients with concomitant nail, scalp or palmoplantar psoriasis. Patients received subcutaneous efalizumab 1.0 mg/kg weekly for up to 20 weeks. By Week 12, an improvement from baseline of 50% or more was observed in 21.4% (181/844) of patients with nail psoriasis, 62.4% (718/1150) of patients with scalp psoriasis, and 51.4% (127/247) of patients with palmoplantar psoriasis. Quality of life improved throughout the trial, with a 50% median improvement in DLQI score after 12 weeks of treatment. Efalizumab showed promising efficacy in the treatment of nail, scalp and palmoplantar psoriasis, which was reflected in improvements in quality of life

Role of widows in the heterosexual transmission of HIV in Manicaland, Zimbabwe, 1998–2003

BACKGROUND: AIDS is the main driver of young widowhood in southern Africa. METHODS: The demographic characteristics of widows, their reported risk behaviours and the prevalence of HIV were examined by analysing a longitudinal population-based cohort of men and women aged 15-54 years in Manicaland, eastern Zimbabwe. The results from statistical analyses were used to construct a mathematical simulation model with the aim of estimating the contribution of widow behaviour to heterosexual HIV transmission. RESULTS: 413 (11.4%) sexually experienced women and 31 (1.2%) sexually experienced men were reported to be widowed at the time of follow-up. The prevalence of HIV was exceptionally high among both widows (61%) and widowers (male widows) (54%). Widows were more likely to have high rates of partner change and engage in a pattern of transactional sex than married women. Widowers took partners who were a median of 10 years younger than themselves. Mathematical model simulations of different scenarios of sexual behaviour of widows suggested that the sexual activity of widow(er)s may underlie 8-17% of new HIV infections over a 20-year period. CONCLUSIONS: This combined statistical analysis and model simulation suggest that widowhood plays an important role in the transmission of HIV in this rural Zimbabwean population. High-risk partnerships may be formed when widowed men and women reconnect to the sexual network

Housing Justice in Unequal Cities

Housing Justice in Unequal Cities is a global research network funded by the National Science Foundation (BCS 1758774) and housed at the Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA Luskin. This open-access volume, co-edited by Ananya Roy and Hilary Malson, brings together movement-based and university-based scholars to build a shared field of inquiry focused on housing justice. Based on a convening that took place in Los Angeles in January 2019, at the LA Community Action Network and at the University of California, Los Angeles, the essays and interventions situate housing justice in the long struggle for freedom on stolen land. Embedded in the stark inequalities of Los Angeles, our work is necessarily global, connecting the city’s Skid Row to the indebted and evicted in Spain and Greece, to black women’s resistance in Brazil, to the rights asserted by squatters in India and South Africa. Learning from radical social movements, we argue that housing justice also requires a commitment to research justice. With this in mind, our effort to build a field of inquiry is also necessarily an endeavor to build epistemologies and methodologies that are accountable to communities that are on the frontlines of banishment and displacement

Intergroup Dialogue as a Just Dialogue: Challenging and Preventing Normalization in Campus Dialogues

The tensions from the Israeli occupation of Palestine reach around the globe and heated debates over the struggles of these two peoples are evident on U.S. college campuses. The power imbalance represented in the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis is replicated on college campuses. BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) is a response to this inequality, is a movement to end the occupation, and has raised the issue of normalization. Teaching about this conflict presents particular challenges for faculty who negotiate this highly contested issue in classrooms or campus communities, and intergroup dialogue is an important pedagogy that can be used. It is critical to address normalization in intergroup dialogue. We discuss examples and themes of normalization in intergroup dialogue, and present pedagogical and other strategies to prevent and address normalization in intergroup dialogue and in other similar intergroup contact approaches with Arab or Palestinian and Jewish or Israeli participants.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/116007/1/dome12067.pd

The Effect of Motivation on the Performance of Public and Private Organizations in Tanzani: a Comparative Analysis of Tanzania Posts Corporation, FEDEX, SCANDINAVIA and DHL

The study is aimed at examining the effects of motivation on performance in public organization in Tanzania, concluding the necessary improvement, to advice on implementation of the changes based on the study and literature of the public organizations. The study focused on Tanzania Post Corporation to represent other public organizations. Other three similar private organizations were selected as a comparison in effectiveness in quality services provision. These organizations are DHL, FEDEX and SCANDINAVIA. The information collected was used to generalize the quality of services and motivation offered by the remaining organizations in Tanzania. Managers and frontline employees of the selected firms were involved to gather the required data. The study revealed that, poor motivation, low pay, non conducive working environment, accountability and accumulated arrears are among the major problems that hinder the public organizations system work efficiently. This leads to a number of employees quit the public sector and join the private ones causing decline in the quality of services, customers and hence less income. The study revealed that most of the well qualified and competent personnel opt for private sectors due to good pay and conducive working environments. It is thus recommended that, the public organization leadership should grant stronger and coordinated efforts in supporting and work hand in hand with the frontline employees in order to eliminate the problem of ineffective work. The study recommends that the public organization must impose a system of offering customer care services to their employees so as provide quality services and become more competitive. Also public organizations should create conducive working environments, improve remunerations, provide motivations and pay their employee without delay. By so doing the public organizations will retain the professional employees, improve the services and attract more customers hence boosting the revenues. This makes the public organizations to become more competitive and cope with the resulting changes

Grounds for Eviction: Race, Mobility, and Policing in the Antelope Valley

This dissertation links research on residential mobility with research on policing and the criminalization of poverty. It does so through a case study of Black movement to Los Angeles’ Antelope Valley through the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program, a federal housing assistance program that is increasingly replacing public housing and one designed to promote residential mobility and racial integration.Fifty years after the passage of the Fair Housing Act banning discrimination in the sale or rental of housing, and the publication of the Kerner Commission report urging integration- oriented housing policy, social policy has turned towards residential mobility as a mechanism of combatting segregation and, by extension, racial inequality. Though the effects of mobility programs like vouchers are known to be smaller than expected, less is known about why this might be the case.I look to the Antelope Valley to examine what voucher experiences there might reveal about this process. Tracing the region’s decades-long history of racial segregation and inequality, I show how racial hierarchy has adapted to changes in laws, racial composition, and economic circumstances. I then illustrate how the Great Recession drove Black voucher movement to the valley over the past decade.Turning to qualitative findings, I show how Black voucher renters moving to the Antelope Valley are met with racism, economic resentment, and gendered stereotypes in their new communities. This social context of reception is key to understanding the mobility process. I then trace how one local government reflected and encouraged these sentiments by developing policies designed to reverse voucher movement by criminalizing, policing and evicting Black voucher renters in the area. While some of these schemes were abandoned, changes to the municipal code structure that encourage individual policing remain a highly effective mechanism of intimidating, impoverishing, and evicting Black voucher renters. This participatory policing regime, wherein local residents surveil their neighbors and file complaints with municipal code enforcement and other local authorities, illustrates an understudied contemporary mechanism of maintaining segregation. Finally, I show how Black voucher renters interpret, experience, and navigate these conditions, focusing on how they maintain their housing and avoid eviction