Mentoring Model: potential students as mentors

Knowledge is a gift that is transferrable from one person to another. Everyone has it and can transfer it thus making impact on other people’s lives. In this paper the authors have come up with an innovative approach of turning potential students in higher education into mentors: Student mentors selected based on certain criteria will support their immediate juniors on their subject content and by evaluating their assessments. Mentors will be continuously monitored for their performance and changes introduced. If required. This approach is expected to benefit the students, mentors and tutors. To a student, the expected benefits are on enhanced learning experiences from peer support and better understanding of the concepts because of dual interaction with tutor and mentor. For a mentor, it may give a strong foundation as they would continue to be in touch with the concepts learnt in the previous academic year and further clarify their own doubts. This mentorship is expected to prepare them to become academic role models and in turn improve upon their soft skills. The experiences drawn from academic guidance and assessment evaluations of juniors will set the mentors towards an improved work in their own assessments. Unlike a tutor, a mentor having an added advantage of writing an assessment in the previous year and now evaluating the same assessment is in a better position to suggest changes should any be needed in the assessments. In the process, students are inspired and are motivated to become mentors. This gives enough time for the tutors to focus upon research and planning of new interesting learning activities for their students due to the reduced workload. This paper will discuss in detail the entire process, starting from selection criteria of a mentor till mentor change. Mentor change would be as a result of quality concern arising from supervision which includes mentor performance evaluation, moderation of scripts and feedback sessions. However, for the system to be successful it is critical that both Students and Mentors be clear of their roles and expectations. There are also some challenges from this approach as mentors may have commitment constraints and issues emerging from student relations particularly in the area of respect and favoritism which will also be discussed

A Win-Win Dual Internship Model for Turning Graduates Employable

There seems to be a growing concern about the skill set needed in university graduates which is a factor inhibiting numerous students from acquiring proper employment. This has drawn the attention of employers and universities to work hand in hand to provide real time work exposure to students in developing the required skill set by way of internship. While most universities still follow the traditional method of offering single internship, Botho College, Botswana has gone an extra mile in introducing dual Internship for its students. This enables students to identify their lacking skills from their first internship experience and develop them through customized support sessions offered by the tutors. This is believed to prepare them for the second internship. Some employers also found that the interns on second internship were of better quality due to the impact of first internship and support sessions empowering them with the necessary employability skills. Most students also found this to help them in identifying an area for final year project and focus in developing the skills required to accomplish the project work and towards future job. It also enabled them to make future decision in terms of their career prospects and higher education. This article discusses on the impact of dual internship on academic performance and employability factor in University graduates. Authors believe from the lessons learnt that dual internship promotes both the employability and technical skills in students transforming them as well rounded graduates for immediate job marketBotho Universit

A Study on Skills Gap Beyond COVID

Keeping up with the pace of technological advancement is a challenge for companies of all shapes and sizes. It is increasingly crucial to reskill and upskill in the changing era of innovation, especially post-pandemic (Beyond Covid), and acquiring soft skills is imperative for success in the digital era. The importance of soft skills, like teamwork, communication skills, problem-solving, and critical thinking, is a growing demand, heightened especially during the pandemic while working remotely. Upskilling ensures employees’ skillsets won’t become obsolete. As you reskill your employees, you create a more well-rounded, cross-trained workforce, and increase your team’s effectiveness. (itagroup.com, n.d.) According to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the equivalent of 255 million full-time jobs have been lost due to the pandemic, and 1.6 billion informal economy workers lacking a social safety net have been significantly affected. The recovery will be slow; global economic growth is expected to return to pre-pandemic levels only by 2022 or 2023. The pandemic has dramatically accelerated the need for new skills in the workforce, with social and emotional skills high in demand. The proportion of companies addressing empathy and interpersonal skills doubled in 2020, according to our newest McKinsey Global Survey on reskilling. (McKinsey, 2021

Representation of women, older patients, ethnic, and racial minorities in trials of atrial fibrillation

BackgroundRepresentation trends of women, older adults, and ethnic/racial minorities in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of atrial fibrillation (AF) are uncertain.MethodsWe systematically reviewed 134 AF related RCTs (phase II and III) encompassing 149,162 participants using Medline and ClinicalTrials.gov through April 2019 to determine representation trends of women, older patients (≥75 years), and ethnic/racial minorities. Weighted data on the prevalence of AF from epidemiological studies were used to compare the representation of the studied groups of interest in AF RCTs to their expected burden of the disease.ResultsOnly 18.7% of the RCTs reported proportion of older patients, and 12.7% RCTs reported ethnic/racial minorities. The proportions of women in RCTs versus general population were 35.2% and 35.1%, of Hispanics were 11.9% and 5.2%, of Blacks were 1.2% and 5.7%, of American Indian/Alaskans were 0.2% and 0.2%, of Asians were 14.2% and 2.4%, of native Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders were 0.05% and 0.1% and of non-Whites were 19.5% and 22.5%, respectively. The weighted mean age (SD) across the trials was 65.3 (3.2) years which was less than the corresponding weighted mean age of 71.1 (4.5) years in the comparative epidemiological data.ConclusionThe reporting of older patients and ethnic/racial minorities was poor in RCTs of AF. The representation of women and American Indian/Alaskan natives matched their expected population share of disease burden. Hispanics and Asians were over-represented and Blacks, native Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders and non-Whites were under-represented in RCTs of AF

Stress-Induced Cellular Clearance Is Mediated by the SNARE Protein ykt6 and Disrupted by α-Synuclein.

Age-related neurodegenerative disorders are characterized by a slow, persistent accumulation of aggregated proteins. Although cells can elicit physiological responses to enhance cellular clearance and counteract accumulation, it is unclear how pathogenic proteins evade this process in disease. We find that Parkinson's disease α-synuclein perturbs the physiological response to lysosomal stress by impeding the SNARE protein ykt6. Cytosolic ykt6 is normally autoinhibited by a unique farnesyl-mediated regulatory mechanism; however, during lysosomal stress, it activates and redistributes into membranes to preferentially promote hydrolase trafficking and enhance cellular clearance. α-Synuclein aberrantly binds and deactivates ykt6 in patient-derived neurons, thereby disabling the lysosomal stress response and facilitating protein accumulation. Activating ykt6 by small-molecule farnesyltransferase inhibitors restores lysosomal activity and reduces α-synuclein in patient-derived neurons and mice. Our findings indicate that α-synuclein creates a permissive environment for aggregate persistence by inhibiting regulated cellular clearance and provide a therapeutic strategy to restore protein homeostasis by harnessing SNARE activity