Political leadership and conflict resolution: An African example

Challenges to post-conflict leadership in African states highlight the need for democratic capacity building, with clear participatory processes involving communities and the leadership as a necessary condition to mitigate new or resurrected conflicts. This article explores transformational leadership and how it relates to democratic capacity building in Rwanda. We argue that community capacity building through grassroots leadership is a necessary and sufficient ingredient for the development and sustenance of democracy in postconflict societies. Reconciliation through justice, political reforms including decentralisation, and women’s empowerment as critical variables in this process characterise a transformational agenda to gradually achieve stability at the grassroots. Despite dilemmas of justice and democracy, transformative leadership in Rwanda continues to evolve at both state and grassroots levels through processes based on indigenous knowledge and practices like gacaca and ingando to achieve the greater good of reconciliation

An account of the methodological implementation of design-based research in the chemistry classroom context

Design-Based Research (DBR) has recently received a significant amount of attention in the educational research literature of the 21st century. This work analyses the understanding of DBR as the research methodology, why, and how it can be applied in educational research to bring a practical outcome and improve educational practices. Besides, this work reflects on a step-by-step implementation of the Hands-on Instructional Model (HIM) designed to enhance the development of chemistry learners’ curiosity and problem-solving skills. Also, it gives a detailed description of the two prototypes of the first alteration cycle. A sample of 169 Senior Three chemistry students was purposively selected from three science classes to participate in this study. Design-based research was recommended as a viable research methodology to educational researchers for their lifetime professional contribution to the research in the education field and to bridge the gap between theory and practice in educational contexts

Effectiveness of Hands-On Activities to Develop Chemistry Learners’ Curiosity in Community Secondary Schools in Tanzania

Learners’ curiosity is among the affective domains of learning that has a great potential to take learning to higher levels and meet the demands of the 21st-century teaching and learning process. This paper assesses how hands-on activities performed using learning materials from learners’ immediate environment can enhance learners’ curiosity in chemistry lessons. Observing students’ hands-on activities during chemistry lessons enabled researchers to monitor the development and expression of curiosity in the actual learning environment. The study involved 169 senior three chemistry students purposively selected from three intact science classes in three community secondary schools from Dar es salaam, Tanzania. We performed a Design-Based Research (DBR) in a convergent mixed method design following a pragmatic stance. We found that learners can better express their curiosity when they collaboratively learn using materials that they are familiar with. Besides, the paired samples t-test performed on the means curiosity indicators from pre and post-intervention Students Self-Reporting Questionnaire (SSRQ) gave t(127) =22.25, p\u3c0.0005, and the effect size of 0.80 while pre and post-intervention Teacher Rating Scale (TRS) shown t(168) = 13.427, p\u3c0.0005 and effect size of 0.62. Based on these findings it is recommended that educators should put learners at the center of every step of the learning process through hands-on activities to stimulate their learning curiosity

Developing Students’ Curiosity Through Chemistry Hands-on Activities: A Case of Selected Community Secondary Schools in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Curiosity is the inner drive for learning or ‘hunger for learning’ which is among the twenty-firstcentury learning competencies. Students in their earliest stage ought to exhibit curiosity to stirup knowledge acquisition and exploration, yet the development of curiosity in the context of education is considered to be unusual. This research assesses how chemistry students develop and express curiosity in a hands-on learning environment. A sample of 169 senior three students from three community secondary schools in Dar es Salaam was involved in this study. Besides, the study examined how hands-on activities in chemistry lessons can be incorporated as a pedagogical practice to foster students’ curiosity. The study employed a convergent mixed method design in (QUAL+quant) form following a pragmatic stance. We used lesson observations, interviews, and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) to gather qualitative data while quantitative data were obtained through the Students’ Self-Reporting Questionnaire (SSRQ) and Teacher Rating Scale (TRS). It was revealed that hands-on activities can successfully be used when teachers share success criteria and learning intentions of a particular lesson. The overall results showed a significant increase in students’ curiosity due to the implementation of hands-on activities as an instructional strategy. In this perspective, we advocate for hands-on activities to be used frequently in chemistry lesson sessions and more studies should be done further on students’ curiosity in the field of education

Development of chemistry learners’ problem-solving skills through hands-on instructional model

Learners can experience science in the real world by interacting with materials, collaborating with peers, and engaging in a problem-solving process. Notwithstanding, secondary school learners’ problem-solving skills (PSS) can be developed by using an instructional strategy that actively involves them in the learning process instead of sorely focusing on content learned. This paper shows how the production of materials for teaching and learning can go hand-in-hand with the development of learners’ PSS through the implementation of a Hands-on Instructional Model (HIM) in chemistry lessons. This study was a Design-based Research using a convergent mixed-method approach. The data was collected using lesson observation protocol, focus group discussions guide, and problem-solving test. On the aspect of the development of PSS, learners were enhanced with the skills to solve an ordinary chemistry problem and the criteria of observation were on the ways learners identify a problem, the approach used to solve the problem, and whether they could reflect on the answer they obtained. The findings indicate a substantial impact of HIM on learners’ PSS. Therefore, it is suggested that HIM should be used frequently to enhance learners’ active engagement in chemistry lessons and for further development of their PSS

Students’ conceptual understanding of organic chemistry and classroom implications in the Rwandan perspectives: A literature review

Chemistry subject continues to be considered as difficult to teach and learn. This leads to students’ low academic achievement, retention, and negative attitude towards the subject. Organic chemistry as one of the concepts on which technological advancement is constructed sometimes appears to be enormously complex to students. There are some persisting misconceptions about it although different innovative instructional strategies have been applied and this area is of main concern as the learning of students can be extremely hindered in case their misconceptions are not minimized and/or corrected. The review then is to equip educators with knowledge about organic chemistry concept and source of students ‘misconceptions; the misconceptions of students about organic chemistry; the ways of diagnosing students’ misconceptions and remedies of those misconceptions; some learning theories for the effective organic chemistry instruction and classroom implications. The paper is also useful to know more about the minimization of students’ misconceptions and leading them to the great academic achievement and interest towards the subject by employing cooperative learning models; thus, many other different innovative teaching strategies are recommended to apply in organic chemistry instructio

Animal Reservoirs of Zoonotic Tungiasis in Endemic Rural Villages of Uganda

Animal tungiasis is believed to increase the prevalence and parasite burden in humans. Animal reservoirs of Tunga penetrans differ among endemic areas and their role in the epidemiology of tungiasis had never been investigated in Uganda. To identify the major animal reservoirs of Tunga penetrans and their relative importance in the transmission of tungiasis in Uganda, a cross sectional study was conducted in animal rearing households in 10 endemic villages in Bugiri District. T. penetrans infections were detected in pigs, dogs, goats and a cat. The prevalences of households with tungiasis ranged from 0% to 71.4% (median 22.2) for animals and from 5 to 71.4% (median 27.8%) for humans. The prevalence of human tungiasis also varied among the population of the villages (median 7%, range 1.3-37.3%). Pig infections had the widest distribution (nine out of 10 villages) and highest prevalence (median 16.2%, range 0-64.1%). Pigs also had a higher number of embedded sand fleas than all other species combined (p<0.0001). Dog tungiasis occurred in five out of 10 villages with low prevalences (median of 2%, range 0-26.9%). Only two goats and a single cat had tungiasis. Prevalences of animal and human tungiasis correlated at both village (rho = 0.89, p = 0.0005) and household (rho = 0.4, p<0.0001) levels. The median number of lesions in household animals correlated with the median intensity of infection in children three to eight years of age (rho = 0.47, p<0.0001). Animal tungiasis increased the odds of occurrence of human cases in households six fold (OR = 6.1, 95% CI 3.3-11.4, p<0.0001). Animal and human tungiasis were closely associated and pigs were identified as the most important animal hosts of T. penetrans. Effective tungiasis control should follow One Health principles and integrate ectoparasites control in animals

Curriculum Recontextualisation in HIV Counsellor Training in Uganda: A Conceptual Framework for Pedagogic Analysis in Non-formal Education

Within HIV prevention, Care and Treatment, training and capacity building is viewed as a vital intervention to build the required competences among health care providers and subsequently improve the quality of service provision

The Recontextualisation of the National HIV Counselling and Testing Training Curriculum in Central Uganda: Trainers

Like any other pedagogical practice, training of health care providers on HIV Counselling and Testing (HCT) for HIV prevention, care and treatment services involves an organized attempt to assist learning through instruction, observation and practice. Both the National HCT policy and curriculum launched by the Uganda Ministry of Health in 2005 advocate for employment of adult learner-centred learning methodologies for knowledge and skills transfer during HCT trainings to build the requited proficiency of HCT counsellors. This paper examines how pedagogy is structured during the delivery of HCT training sessions vis-a-vis what the national HCT curriculum spells out