Teacher Education in Tanzania: Pre-Service Teachers Preparation for the 21st Century

This study explored the required knowledge and skills during pre-services teachers’ preparation for the 21st century based to Tanzania context. The qualitative study was employed at the selected universities with teacher education programme in Tanzania. The study discovered that some 21st century knowledge were not plentifully integrated during pre-services teacher preparation in while other skills are well integrated.  Participants were the pre-service teachers’ and tutors including Professors and Lectures from the teacher education programme. Although the study found some impediments to the integration of 21st century knowledge in teacher education programmes in Tanzania. This study endorses that, technological pedagogical content knowledge should be given highly priority without isolation during preparation of teacher for the 21st century. Key words: Teacher education, Pre-service teacher, knowledge and skills DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-11-09 Publication date: April 30th 202

Effects of Managing Gender of Employees in Enhancing Organizational Performance. A Case Study of Kenya Ports Authority

More than ever before managers are finding themselves at the center of managing workforce diversity as they align their business to cope with the fast changing business requirements and people demands. Indeed workforce diversity is top of the mind of business leaders who are keen to positively influence labor productivity and organization success. This is because they see diversity as a significant business risk whose constraints impact the growth and profitability of their organization. Besides a huge percentage of the global Chief Executive Officers expect significant change in the way their organizations manage workforce diversity. This change is expected to go beyond the generally held believe that diversity management deals with fair employment to strategic consideration of the broad effects and hidden potentials of diversity. The aim of this research was to explore the effects of managing gender diversity to enhance organizational performance. This study was a descriptive research. Data was collected from sixty employees of the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) which is a profit making public institution in Kenya. Theoretical model and hypothesis in this study were tested using Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS). The results indicated that gender, age and marital status greaty impact on organization performance and success. In addition the study recommended that KPA should recruit a more diverse workforce as it will result to improved synergy in decision making, better understanding of customer’s needs, and increased flexibility in staffing. This should however be reinforced through well formulated human resource policies and practices. Key Words: Gender, diversity, organizational performance, workforce

Biometric Classification with Factor Analysis

This research presents a study on biometrics classification using Factor Analysis (FA). As a multivariate statistical tool, factor analysis is useful for understanding the underlying structure in a dataset. Moreover, in addition to achieving an economy of the variables, the"factors" or hypothetical constructs can provide an alternate yet succinct representation of the data. It is a method of determining, from an observable set of variables, a basic set of components that are common to all the observations. In this study, the loadings (orweights) on the Factors are used to classify the data in alternate representation. In particular, we will examine and group the data according to three biometric features. In the first part, we demonstrate the capabilities of factor analysis to capture the gender of the individual. This will enable us to use FA as a gender classifier. The next study will show the use of an FA as a facial hair classifier. Given a group of individuals, we will be able to classify them as either having beards or not. Finally, in the last part presented inthis work, we will work on classifying the facial expressions of a group of Japanese women. Given all seven universal expressions per subject (two or three of each expression), we will use factor analysis to group each subject according to their expression. Furthermore, given an individual with a particular expression, we will use factor analysis as a biometric measure in the determination of the particular expression exhibited

Industrial Policy in Context: Comparative Experiences from Chile and Zambia

This article tries to draw lessons from Chile for Zambia on innovative industrial policy and strategies that lead to industrial transformation and job creation. The creation of quality jobs for the increasingly skilled youth requires significant efforts. Industrial policy has been argued to have the potential to contribute to the creation of employment through support for new and old initiatives in the economy. In the case of Zambia, the economy has mainly been dominated by the mining sector, where the creation of jobs has been very small, whereas the comparator country Chile developed an institutional framework for industrial policy that addressed market failures and encouraged innovation concentrated in specific sectors. These were attainable given the country’s existing or potential comparative advantage and therefore had strong growth prospects and impacted on job creation. The study finds that Chile provides a rich experience that Zambia can learn from in creating labour intensive job opportunities especially for youths

Industrial Policy in Context: Comparative Experiences from Chile and Zambia

This article tries to draw lessons from Chile for Zambia on innovative industrial policy and strategies that lead to industrial transformation and job creation. The creation of quality jobs for the increasingly skilled youth requires significant efforts. Industrial policy has been argued to have the potential to contribute to the creation of employment through support for new and old initiatives in the economy. In the case of Zambia, the economy has mainly been dominated by the mining sector, where the creation of jobs has been very small, whereas the comparator country Chile developed an institutional framework for industrial policy that addressed market failures and encouraged innovation concentrated in specific sectors. These were attainable given the country’s existing or potential comparative advantage and therefore had strong growth prospects and impacted on job creation. The study finds that Chile provides a rich experience that Zambia can learn from in creating labour intensive job opportunities especially for youths

Effect of Availability of Teaching and Learning Resources on the Implementation of Inclusive Education in Pre-School Centers in Nyamira North Sub-County, Nyamira County, Kenya.

Inclusive education is a process of adjusting the home, school and the larger community to accommodate persons with special needs. In respect to pre-school learners, it is a means by which centers accommodate all learners regardless of their physical, intellectual, social, emotional, linguistic challenges. UNICEF notes that some 150 million children with disabilities lack access to child care services, schools, recreation and other social services, and are likely to remain illiterate and untrained, ultimately unable to join the labor force. Children with special needs are still perceived negatively by society. Most of the learners with special needs do not enroll in pre-school centers in Nyamira North Sub-county and if enrolled, they drop out before the year ends as per the report from Education Office. The study aimed at finding out whether availability of teaching and learning resources influenced implementation of inclusive education in pre-school Centers in Nyamira North sub-county. Efforts have been made to integrate the learners with special needs although the programme has encountered a lot of challenges; policies have been put in place to provide for the achievement of universal education and the realization of vision 2030. However, Inclusive education experiences a pyramid of challenges at pre- school level in the world and Kenya. The study employed descriptive survey research design. The target population was 134 head teachers in 134 pre-school centers, 402 pre-school teachers, 12 Education officers and 938  pre-school parents   in Nyamira North Sub-county. Sample size was 40 pre-school centers and 40 head teachers which were randomly sampled to represent 30% of the centers. Further, 134 pre- school teachers and 270 pre-school parents were sampled through stratified random sampling and 12 Education Officers sampled by census sampling. Data was collected using questionnaires and observation checklists. Descriptive statistics of means, percentages and weighted averages was used in analyzing the data. Findings revealed that there were inadequate teaching and learning resources at pre-school centers in Nyamira North sub-county. 78 percent of the respondents revealed that inadequate resources affected the implementation of inclusive education. The study recommends that adequate teaching and learning resources should be provided to ensure effective implementation of inclusive education and more funds to be allocated for procuring teaching and learning materials for Special Needs Education (SNE) learners. Keywords: Inclusive education, teaching and learning resources, pre-school centers, learners with special needs, implementatio

Evaluation of sorghum genotypes for variation in canopy temperature and drought tolerance

Doctor of PhilosophyDepartment of AgronomyP.V. Vara PrasadSorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench) is the fifth most economically important cereal crop grown worldwide and adapted to a wide range of climatic conditions. Drought stress has been ranked as one of the most significant causes of crop yield loss with its effects on yield and yield components. Conservative water use by plants is one of the strategies that can be used as a drought coping mechanism. The slow wilting trait has been associated with conservative water use and has been found in some sorghum genotypes. The purpose of this study was to use canopy temperature to screen for drought tolerance in sorghum, evaluate water use efficiency for slow wilting sorghum genotypes and determine variability in root morphology and response to drought among sorghum genotypes. Canopy temperature studies were conducted under field conditions using infrared (IR) sensors while water use efficiency and root studies were conducted under greenhouse conditions. Our results showed a distinct separation in canopy temperature among genotypes under field conditions at 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm. Midday canopy temperature depression (CTD) was positively correlated to yield (R2 = 0.19) and harvest index (R2 = 0.11). CTD was also stable for all the genotypes during the period from 1:00 pm to 7:00 pm. There was a negative correlation between CTD and crop water stress index (CWSI) (R2 = 0.34) and a positive one between canopy temperature and CWSI (R2 = 0.50). Evaluation of genotypes for water use efficiency revealed significant variability among sorghum genotypes in the amount of water used (10.48 – 13.52 kg) and transpiration efficiency (TE) (2.64 – 7.11 g kg-1) among genotypes. Slow wilting genotypes were high in TE. Rooting depth increased for some genotypes under drought stress with genotype SC1124 recording the largest increase (180%). Total root length for some genotypes increased by 11 – 113% with genotypes SC224 and SC1019 recording the greatest increase. There was a positive correlation between water used and root length (R2 = 0.21). These results show that there is potential for selection of drought tolerance in sorghum and that genotypes with the slow wilting traits are efficient in water use

Effects of employee skills and knowledge on effective organizational change: A case study of National Social Security Fund

ABSTRACT Change management has evolved considerably over decades, and experienced a major transformation in form and function amid a rapidly changing environment. Organisations have been compelled to acclimatize with the global trend or risk being irrelevant in today's dynamic business environment. Organisational change has become almost mandatory in order for firms to compete competitively not only in the local and region markets but also at a global perspective. This paper examined organizational change, focusing on the effect of change to organisational performance as its main objective. The paper further examined extensively the impacts of organisational change to performance through various theoretical and conceptual reviews. The conceptual framework on the study topic and discussed the variables involved. These variables are Employee Skills and Knowledge, Organizational Culture, Organizational Policies, Technological change and how they contribute to change management

GazeRoomLock: Using Gaze and Head-Pose to Improve the Usability and Observation Resistance of 3D Passwords in Virtual Reality

Authentication has become an important component of Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) applications, such as virtual shopping stores, social networks, and games. Recent work showed that compared to traditional graphical and alphanumeric passwords, a more promising form of passwords for IVR is 3D passwords. This work evaluates four multimodal techniques for entering 3D passwords in IVR that consist of multiple virtual objects selected in succession. Namely, we compare eye gaze and head pose for pointing, and dwell time and tactile input for selection. A comparison of a) usability in terms of entry time, error rate, and memorability, and b) resistance to real world and offline observations, reveals that: multimodal authentication in IVR by pointing at targets using gaze, and selecting them using a handheld controller significantly improves usability and security compared to the other methods and to prior work. We discuss how the choice of pointing and selection methods impacts the usability and security of 3D passwords in IVR