The politics of municipal fragmentation in Ghana

The scholarly debate over the rival merits of local government consolidation and fragmentation is an old but enduring one. However, in this debate very little attention has been focused on the political dimension of council amalgamation and fragmentation – yet political considerations play a central role in both the formulation and outcomes of de-concentration policy. The purpose of this article is to fill a gap in the literature by examining local government fragmentation in Ghana from 1988 to 2014. The article does this by identifying the key players and analysing their interests and gains, as well as the tensions arising from the fragmentation exercise. The implications from the Ghanaian case for more general theories of fragmentation are drawn out

Property rate in Ghana: a poor local revenue source or underexploited potential?

This article aims to assess whether or not property rates in Ghana are a good potential source of local revenue. Through detailed analysis of six local government case studies, we find that present prospects for most rural local areas to raise substantial rate revenue are circumscribed, but in urban councils they are more promising. Nevertheless, no council is able to collect rates fully and from all rateable properties. This is attributed to several factors: the politicisation of taxation; ethnic homogeneity; intergovernmental transfers; partisan local government elections; resistance caused by elite design; and the denial of public information. Although these factors have been identified in previous literature, the study includes new findings which challenge received academic thinking on how they affect local tax collection in developing countries

Ghana’s Policy Making: From Elitism and Exclusion to Participation and Inclusion?

In its 57 years of nationhood, Ghana witnessed 22 years of military rule, 6 years of one-party government and 29 years of democratic reign. Policy making under the one-party and military regimes was exclusionary with the rulers alone making public policies. Because the military and one-party regimes’ approach to policy making was elitist and exclusionary this: left stakeholders with little or no opportunity to make input; failed to consider important constituencies and points of view; created implementation difficulties and raised questions surrounding the legitimacy of public decisions. In contrast, constitutional rule democratizes policy making; increases problem solution options; smoothens policy implementation; and legitimizes public decisions. Two cases: the Review of the 1992 Constitution and the Reform to the Social Security System are used to test this supposition. The evidence shows that a consensual approach to policy-making has emerged since Ghana’s return to democratic rule in 1993. This paradigm shift has improved the design and implementation of public policies and programs in Ghana. Nevertheless, the situation is far from satisfactory because marginalized and unorganized groups still suffer alienation; official actors still have a stronger urge over non authoritative players in participatory episodes; and elected and appointed participants still have informational advantage over their non state counterparts. Together these minutiae adversely affect the quality and effectiveness of participation and this throws into question the legitimacy of the democratic governance project in Ghana

African women’s experience of domestic violence and help-seeking behaviour in Melbourne, Australia

This study explored African refugee background women’s experience of domestic violence and help-seeking behaviour. The women were part of a domestic violence prevention and intervention project run by a local community organisation. Underpinned by help-seeking frameworks such as Theory of Planned Behaviour, data were gathered via two focus group interviews with seventeen women in Melbourne, Australia. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. The results showed that participants experienced different forms of violence. Many did not seek help early, and help-seeking was constrained by cultural considerations and children in the relationship. Implications are discussed in relation to formal and informal support or interventions. © 2022, Australasian Review of African Studies. All Rights Reserved

Computerised Health Information System Implementation in Jordan, a Developing Country

Background and Purpose Many factors promote or hinder the development and implementation of computerised health information systems (HIS) in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, a developing country. This study explores these factors, and identifies the benefits of and barriers to this system. While the collection of health information is routinely undertaken by health workers, many studies show that very little of this data is used by health staff. Therefore, the main goal of this study is to explore the factors that promote or hinder the development and implementation of computerised HIS in developing Arab countries. The study uses Jordan as an example, to explore the major factors affecting computerised HIS and offer suggestions on how to improve the use of these systems, as well as improve healthcare more generally. Five factors were identified as affecting the development and implementation of a computerised HIS: the functional factor, the organisational factor, the technical factor, the managerial factor, the cultural factor and the legal factor. Method This study addresses computerised HIS in Jordanian hospitals, using a mixedmethods approach. The mixed-method design is a stratified, cross-section explanatory sequential design. First, the design used quantitative resources for data collection and analysis, to detect the factors promoting or hindering the development and implementation of a computerised HIS in Jordan. Next, qualitative data was collected and analysed to detect any other factors not addressed by the quantitative approach. An indepth interview was conducted after the quantitative approach. Findings The study’s findings are presented in two ways, according to the data collection method: quantitative findings and qualitative findings. The qualitative method was used to address factors, benefits or barriers in the development and implementation of a computerised HIS in Jordanian hospitals that were not mentioned in the quantitative method. The qualitative results were consistent with the quantitative results. The results are arranged in three major sections. The first concerns the factors promoting or hindering the development and implementation of computerised HIS. The factors promoting this system are mentioned in the study: the functional factor, organisational factor, technical factor, managerial factor, cultural factor and legal factor. Only three items hindered the development and implementation of a computerised HIS. The second section discusses the benefits of the development and implementation of computerised HIS, under two categories: clinical benefits and organisational benefits. The last section outlines the three barriers to the development and implementation of computerised HIS: lack of healthcare staff training, shortage of computers and equipment and the availability of program updates.The factors that promote or hinder the development and implementation of computerised HIS in a developing country, such as Jordan, are the same factors that affect it in developed countries. The benefits and barriers are also the same, because the main goal of computerised HIS in every country is the same: to improve the quality of healthcare

Preparing Teachers to Program Philosophy/Critical Thinking in Subject English to Explore Indicators of Giftedness in Secondary Students in Western Australia

The Australian Curriculum is due to be implemented fully in Western Australia by 2017. In an introduction to the new curriculum on the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority's website, The Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians (MCEETYA, 2008) is quoted as stating that critical and creative thinking are fundamental to students' becoming successful learners. Later in this introductory section, it is explained that The Australian Curriculum will enable students to develop capability in critical and creative thinking. According to researchers such as Lipman (1969, 1974, 1995, 1998, 2003), critical and creative thinking are the consequences of engaging in a course in Philosophy. The Department of Education and Training of Western Australia has indicated that "strong critical thinking skills" are indicators of giftedness and leading researchers, for example, Silverman (1993) and Clark (2002) have suggested a similar connection between "thinking skills" and giftedness when publishing their own checklists. It follows logically, that if critical thinking and the component skills that make up this term can be taught, then to some extent at least, it is possible to teach students to exhibit behaviours that characterise the academically gifted

La educación inclusiva frente a las desigualdades sociales: un estado de la cuestion y algunas reflexiones geograficas

Este artículo establece un estado de la cuestión e la educación inclusiva en el mundo y sugiere algunas reflexiones al respecto. El primer apartado recuerda las conexiones ineludibles entre las preocupaciones educativas por la educación inclusiva y las preocupaciones más generales por la desigualdad. El segundo consigna los criterios de búsqueda de las publicaciones académicas, y observa dos grandes temas en sus contenidos: sobre todo, el cambio interno de las escuelas atrae las miradas, pero en segundo plano también el entorno territorial despierta algunas inquietudes. El tercero anota los criterios de búsqueda de la documentación del Banco Mundial, la OCDE y la UNESCO. En este ámbito los simposios de la Oficina Internacional de la Educación de UNESCO revelan una interpretación dispar, aunque convergente, del concepto de educación inclusiva en las distintas regiones mundiales. Asimismo, todas las publicaciones oficiales muestran una atención prioritaria a las dinámicas internas de las escuelas, puesto que apenas algunas esbozan ciertas relaciones entre la educación inclusiva y las políticas públicas. El último apartado adelanta varios argumentos a favor de una mayor consideración de las escalas local y estatal de la educación inclusiva. Las principales razones para atender a la dimensión local provienen de la causalidad acumulativa de las privaciones sociales, de la necesidad de articular la acción de las escuelas y de la posibilidad de abrir un espacio significativo para la participación ciudadana. Asimismo, las principales razones para atender a la dimensión estatal surgen de las posibles sinergias entre la educación inclusiva y la expansión educativa (p. ej. ¿es correlativo el avance de la escolarización en los distintos ciclos escolares?) como también entre la educación inclusiva y la protección social (p. ej. ¿tienen una implicación pedagógica consistente las abundantes condiciones educativas de las transferencias sociales?