Inclusive Education Policy Implementation in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Lessons for Nigeria and Cameroon

Inclusive education is a social model that can be substantially linked to the 1960 United Nations Convention against Discrimination in Education, and the 1990 and 1994 UNESCO sponsored Jomtien Declaration on “Education for All”and Salamanca Statement on Special education respectively. It is a process of increasing the attendance, involvement, and achievements of all learners in schools, regardless their physical, social, political, economic and cultural status. In order words, inclusive education is the process whereby every child of school age is offered the opportunity of equitable quality education in mainstream educational settings. It is concerned with the restructuring of physical environments, infrastructures, cultures, policies, and practices to respond to the diversity of all learners within the educational systems. Inclusive education is anchored on the premise that; we live in a diverse society where every individual needs to acknowledge the values and differences of each other; and have equal rights in contributing to the progress of society regardless different levels of abilities. As an international policy ratified by most UN member nations, South Africa, though with an abysmal history of exclusion has made practical progress in its implementation more than other African countries. Consequently, this paper seeks to provide evidence on practical inclusive education implementation in post-apartheid South Africa, and the possible lessons other African nations like Nigeria and Cameroon can gather. The underlying assumption here is that successive governments in post-apartheid South Africa have to some extent made good progress in the implementation of inclusive education which could be emulated by Nigeria and Cameroon. Keywords: Inclusive education, post-apartheid South Africa, Nigeria and Cameroo

Subordination of Women in 21stcentury Africa: Cultural Sustainability or a New Slavery? Implications for Educational Development

United Nations facts and statistics indicate that women constitute more than half the world’s population and do three-fourths of the world’s work. Yet women earn just one-tenth of the world’s income; own one percent of the world’s property; three-fourths of women are starving, and above all, represent over two-thirds of non-literate adults. Critically examining the above facts with regard to Africa’s educational development further reveals diminishing returns as well as an overall impediment to the politico-economic and socio-cultural transformation. In spite of recent token changes and appointments of women to political offices in many countries across Africa, girls and women remain relegated to a secondary human status in relation to boys and men. Against this background, this paper highlights the educational implications of the continued subordination of women to men. Keywords: Women subordination, cultural sustainability, new slavery, educational development

Inclusive Education and Sustainable Peace in Africa

Inclusive education is an innovative approach to education by which all children, youths and adults on the globe have equal opportunities to learn comfortably in the same academic environment regardless their intellectual and physical ability/disability and irrespective of their political, ethnic and socio-economic background. It is a brain child of UNESCO (the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization); part of its Education For All (EFA) initiative which seeks to overcome the global challenges of marginalization, discrimination and exclusion. In this light, this paper examines the concept of inclusive education as a means of attaining long-lasting peace in Africa, which in turn will rekindle socio-economic and political progress. The paper provides copious evidence of the fact that socio-economic and political exclusion and marginalization are major sources of conflict and instability in Africa. Its underlying assumption is that inclusive education is a sure means of attaining optimum integral development and sustainable peace in Africa. Keywords: Inclusive education, sustainable peace in Afric

Pooled-DNA sequencing identifies genomic regions of selection in Nigerian isolates of Plasmodium falciparum.

BACKGROUND: The burden of falciparum malaria is especially high in sub-Saharan Africa. Differences in pressure from host immunity and antimalarial drugs lead to adaptive changes responsible for high level of genetic variations within and between the parasite populations. Population-specific genetic studies to survey for genes under positive or balancing selection resulting from drug pressure or host immunity will allow for refinement of interventions. METHODS: We performed a pooled sequencing (pool-seq) of the genomes of 100 Plasmodium falciparum isolates from Nigeria. We explored allele-frequency based neutrality test (Tajima's D) and integrated haplotype score (iHS) to identify genes under selection. RESULTS: Fourteen shared iHS regions that had at least 2 SNPs with a score > 2.5 were identified. These regions code for genes that were likely to have been under strong directional selection. Two of these genes were the chloroquine resistance transporter (CRT) on chromosome 7 and the multidrug resistance 1 (MDR1) on chromosome 5. There was a weak signature of selection in the dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) gene on chromosome 4 and MDR5 genes on chromosome 13, with only 2 and 3 SNPs respectively identified within the iHS window. We observed strong selection pressure attributable to continued chloroquine and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine use despite their official proscription for the treatment of uncomplicated malaria. There was also a major selective sweep on chromosome 6 which had 32 SNPs within the shared iHS region. Tajima's D of circumsporozoite protein (CSP), erythrocyte-binding antigen (EBA-175), merozoite surface proteins - MSP3 and MSP7, merozoite surface protein duffy binding-like (MSPDBL2) and serine repeat antigen (SERA-5) were 1.38, 1.29, 0.73, 0.84 and 0.21, respectively. CONCLUSION: We have demonstrated the use of pool-seq to understand genomic patterns of selection and variability in P. falciparum from Nigeria, which bears the highest burden of infections. This investigation identified known genomic signatures of selection from drug pressure and host immunity. This is evidence that P. falciparum populations explore common adaptive strategies that can be targeted for the development of new interventions

Gender and Social Issues in Teenage Hawking: Implications on Educational Development in Ebonyi State, Nigeria

Before now, there has been a failed attempt by Ebonyi State authorities to place a ban on the increasing menace of street hawking, as a strategy to eradicate the abuse of school age children. Amidst the involvement of a visibly large teenage population in this socio-economic nuisance as observed across the State Capital with its attendant consequences; this research therefore sort-out to examine gender and social issues associated with teenage hawking, and its implications on educational development in the affected State. The paper particularly addressed three objectives relating to; gender/social abuses, hawking rationale and educational attainment. The implications of these issues on educational development were also examined. The study was a cross-sectional descriptive survey that collected data from 273 randomly sampled teenage hawkers from a cross-section of the State's Capital, Abakaliki, using a researcher developed Teenage Hawkers' Questionnaire (THQ), accompanied by interviews and observations. Descriptive statistics - simple frequencies and percentages were applied in the data analysis to answer research questions, while inferential statistics - Chi square test of independence was used to test the lone research hypothesis. Descriptive content analysis was also be used to analyze views expressed during interviews and issues observed during data collection. The findings showed that; bullying, sexual harassment from both males and females, rape and kidnapping were common gender and social abuses experienced by teenage hawkers; with a significant gender disparity amongst the victims (x2(4, N=497) = 20.55, p = 0.00), where females teenage hawkers were more exposed to gender/social abuses from the public during hawking than were males (73% to 27%). Poverty of the masses was identified as the main rationale for teenage hawking. In terms of educational attainment, the hawkers were mostly primary and secondary school dropouts and graduates, with a very tiny percentage (4.25%) schooling and hawking. The general implication of this on the educational development of the State was therefore negative. The main recommendation of the study focused on the need for; the State government to more assertive in action by banning street hawking amongst teenagers especially during schooling time/days/periods and a mass campaign to be launched on the education of the girl-child and street hawkers of school going age in the State