Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education: A New Curriculum Paradigm in the Gambia

This paper discusses on the new curriculum approach being pursued in The Gambia, which is introducing innovation and entrepreneurship courses in all educational programmes at tertiary and higher education levels. The Government of The Gambia through the Ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology (MoHERST) has in 2021 taken up a policy decision to introduce through and embedded approach innovation and entrepreneurship modules in all educational courses at tertiary and higher education levels (MoHERST, 2022). The paper relying on existing literature and policy documents discusses on the education structure of the Gambia and the qualifications frameworks in place to guide the deployment of this new curriculum approach, identifying the collaboration pathways with industry actors and in alignment with international best practices (NAQAA, 2022). The paper further elaborates on the role of each of the actors of the innovation ecosystem and how they coordinate in promoting the development and implementation of the new curriculum in The Gambia. It has detailed how the academic institutions, industry actors, regulators, students, as well as communities interrelate in nurturing and pursuing innovation and entrepreneurship skills towards strengthening the innovation ecosystem in The Gambia. This paper further discusses on the potential benefits of the new curriculum approach and the impact it will create in supporting and ensuring a sustained socio-economic development is achieved in The Gambia. Finally, the paper concluded by proposing policy recommendations for adoption in enriching and upgrading the new curriculum approach in a bid to improving its impact in the overall national development drive in the Gambia

Considering Football Teams from a Resource Dependency Theory Perspective

Football is known to be one of the most popular and widely viewed sports around the world. This sport is a well-followed source of entertainment by people from all four corners of the world and its recognition is tremendously increasing. The aim of this study is to examine the actions and strategies football teams use/implement in other to reduce their resource dependency on other teams. The findings of our literature review indicate that football teams use mergers, hiring, executive succession and training as strategies in reducing their resource dependency on other teams. Despite few studies or non-looking at resource dependency theory in a football team perspective this research tried to look at the strategic decisions they can take (football teams) in a highly competitive environment to reduce their resource dependency on other teams. The limitations of our paper includes the lack of enough reference materials when it comes to football most specifically the strategies that football teams use in reducing their resource dependency on other teams as well as our examples being limited to only England and Spain which is not a total representation of all football teams. Keywords Football, Football Teams, Resource Dependency Theory, Strategies DOI: 10.7176/JTHS/43-01 Publication date:September 30th 201

Modeling the Mitigation of Seawater Intrusion By Pumping Brackish Water from the Coastal Aquifer Of Wadi Ham, UAE

The control and management of seawater intrusion in coastal aquifers is a major challenge in the field of water resources management. Seawater intrusion is a major problem in the coastal aquifer of Wadi Ham, United Arab Emirates caused by intensive groundwater abstraction from increased agricultural activities. This has caused the abonnement of salinized wells and ultimately affected farming activities and domestic water supply in the area. In this study, the 3D finite element groundwater flow and solute transport model, FEFLOW was used to simulate pumping of brackish water from the intrusion zone to control seawater intrusion in the aquifer. The model was calibrated and validated with available records of groundwater levels and salinity distribution. Different simulation scenarios were conducted to obtain optimum pumping locations, rates as well as number of wells. It was found that pumping at a distance of 1500 m from the shoreline at 500m3/day using 16 installed wells is the optimum simulation. A comparison between scenarios of non-pumping and pumping was conducted. Results showed an increased in salt concentration in groundwater under the non-pumping scenario while it decreased under the pumping scenario. Under non-pumping scenario isoline 35,000 mg/l was observed to have intruded into the eastern southern part of the aquifer while maximum isoline observed for the same area under pumping scenario was 20,000 mg/l. This result showed an overall improvement in salt concentration in groundwater distribution and ultimately halted seawater intrusion in the aquifer

Exploring the impact of workplace incivility on employee counterproductive work behavior through the mediating role of turnover intention: Evidence from the Gambia and Ghana

Workplace Incivility (WPI) has recently become a dominant area of research as a predictor of employee behavior at work. WPI is a menace in the workplace that creates dissatisfied employees who spend most of their time on non-productive tasks. Based on a sample of 504 employees of public and private sector institutions in The Gambia and Ghana, this article examines the impact of workplace incivility on employee counterproductive work behavior through the mediating role of Turnover Intention (TI). Using structural equation modeling, the results indicate a strong relationship between workplace incivility and Counterproductive Work Behavior (CWB) as well as a partial mediating role of TI in the relationship between WPI and CWB. Furthermore, the independent sample t-test and multigroup analysis show a higher level of WPI, TI, and CWB in Ghana compared to The Gambia. These findings contribute to the under-researched area of WPI on the African continent. This study also adds value to the existing, but sparse, literature on workplace incivility and may also be used as a guide for public and private institutions in their pursuit of avoiding workplace incivility as well as knowing its effects on institutional productivity. Finally, this study is the first of its kind to look at the existence of WPI in both public and private institutions from The Gambia and Ghana making country comparisons as well as looking at the impact of WPI on the performance of employees hence its relevance to the literature.(c) CIKD Publishing

Physical and psychological factors inhibiting the use of technology in the provision of collaborative feedback

Much importance has been attached to the promotion and development of a collaborative form of feedback in the context of reflective practice. Two main conclusions from relevant studies are that collaborative feedback contributes to the development of reflective practice, and that the predominant structure of feedback practice has not engendered the development of collaborative feedback (Copland 2008, Copland, Ma and Mann 2009 and 2010, Edge 2005, Alexander 2005, Ade-Ojo and Sowe, 2011). Responses to these conclusions have varied. While some studies have explored the underpinning drivers of feedback in reflective practice (Copland 2008, Edge 2005), others have looked at the processes and physicality of the structures that can support the development of a collaborative approach to feedback (Sowe and Ade-Ojo 2011, Mula 2009, Dyke, Harding and Lajeunesse, 2006). With the latter, one of the more common areas that has been explored is the use of technological devices such as video and digital recordings

A Critical Review of the Demola Framework and Its Applicability in a Low-Income Economy: A Case Study of The Gambia

This paper critically reviews the appropriateness of the Demola Framework for adoption in a low-level income country. According to the World Bank, Low-income countries are developing countries with emerging markets or newly industrialized countries (Abubakar et al., 2019). The Demola framework has been developed and used in some European countries such as Finland, Germany, and Spain as a curriculum delivery approach for entrepreneurship education courses (De Carolis, 2019). The framework has been widely used in bridging the gap between the academia and industry, for example in an impact study conducted in Finland, it was established that due to the frameworks’ responsiveness to building synergies between students and industry, 7 polytechnics and other universities have adopted it as part of their curricula delivery approach (Catalá-Pérez et al., 2020). Based on these, its concepts are being tested in The Gambia, a country in West Africa where for the first time in the tertiary and higher education sector, a new policy decision has been rolled out to embed entrepreneurship training as part of the science, technology, and engineering education programme. This programme forms the first stage of a national development initiative to transform one of the public technical training institutions into a University of Applied Science Engineering and Technology that will be entrepreneurial and will be producing business minded graduates

Using assistive technologies in the development of a dialogic and cooperative approach to feedback: An exploration of trainee teachers’ views

This study is driven by two separate but interrelated issues. First, it is driven by the desire to explore the effectiveness of assistive technologies in the structure of professional development of trainee teachers. Second, it seeks to explore the extent to which such technologies, as reflected in the use of digital recordings in the process of self-reflection by trainee teachers, can contribute to the promotion of a dialogic (Alexander, 2008) and cooperative (Edge1992, 2002 and 2006) approaches in the use of feedback for the development of trainee teachers with a focus on problem solving. The anchor for this exploration is the desire to move away from the teacher (educator) –centred role (Copland 2010) that is prevalent in the use of feedback in contemporary teacher training programmes. The study surveyed the views of trainee teachers in two colleges through the use of a questionnaire and through a focus group discussion in consonance with the integrative approach to action research which acknowledges the importance of the voice of the third person (Coghlan and Brannick, 2010). The findings were subjected to both qualitative and quantitative analysis, the former through the use of the SPSS statistical analysis tool and the latter through an ethno-linguistic approach (Copland 2010). The study found that in the views of trainee teachers (third person), the use of assistive technologies can significantly facilitate the promotion of the dialogic/cooperative approaches to giving and using feedback in the professional development of trainee teachers if certain conditions were met. The study concluded that while these approaches are highly desired by trainee teachers who see them as more helpful than the prevalent teacher-centred approach, there is the need to develop a conceptual framework for its implementation

Integrating Data from Multiple Repositories to Analyze Patterns of Contribution in FOSS Projects

The majority of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) developers are mobile and often use different identities in the projects or communities they participate in. These characteristics not only poses challenges for researchers studying the presence (where) and contributions (how much) of developers across multiple repositories, but may also require special attention when formulating appropriate metrics or indicators for the certification of both the FOSS product and process. In this paper, we present a methodology to study the patterns of contribution of 502 developers in both SVN and mailing lists in 20 GNOME projects. Our findings shows that only a small percentage of developers are contributing to both repositories and this cohort are making more commits than they are posting messages to mailing lists. The implications of these findings for our understanding of the patterns of contribution in FOSS projects and on the quality of the final product are discussed

Using Free/Libre Open Source Software Projects as E-learning Tools

Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects can be considered as learning environments in which heterogeneous communities get together to exchange knowledge through discussion and put it into practice through actual contributions to software development, revision and testing. This has encouraged tertiary educators to attempt the inclusion of participation in FLOSS projects as part of the requirements of Software Engineering courses, and pilot studies have been conducted to test the effectiveness of such an attempt. This paper discusses two pilot studies with reference to several studies concerning the role of learning in FLOSS projects and shows how using FLOSS projects as E-learning tools has a potential to increase the quality of the software product