#FeesMustFall: Lessons from the post‑colonial Global South

The protests that engulfed South African universities in 2015 and 2016 revealed a dissatisfaction by students with regard to higher education fees. This article looks at some of the lessons that could assist South Africa in understanding the role of universal fee‑free higher education or fee‑free higher education for the poor. Most countries in the post‑colonial global South indicate a shift to cost-sharing as mounting financial pressures on state budgets make universal free education unsustainable. The current study shows that the cost-sharing model in South Africa has not resonated with students and may also be exclusionary to poor students. The lessons from the post‑colonial global South show that the trend in higher education is that the poor are often left out of most fee structures – including dual track, universal fee‑free, and cost-sharing models. The current study explores some implications and considerations of the current means test model that has been introduced by the current South African president, while using the global South as reference point for the implications of this fee structure, particularly in relation to poor and working-class students.Keywords: cost-sharing; funding; #FeesMustFall; global South; higher education; students; student movement; student politic

STUDENTS’ AND TEACHERS’ ALTERNATIVE CONCEPTIONS ABOUT ELECTROCHEMISTRY

Institute for Science and Technology Education (ISTE

(Re)centring Africa in the training of counselling and clinical psychologists

The mimicry of Europe and United States of America (US) in South African psychology in the early 1900s and the continual presence of Euroamericanised psychology continues to marginalise Black, poor, and working-class people. In this dissertation, I investigated the misalignment of counselling and clinical psychologists’ professional training, specifically the first-year Masters psychology training programme with the South African socio-political context. To counter the usual reliance on hegemonic Euroamerican-centric approaches I elaborated on an Africa(n)-centred perspective so as to make sense of the training of counselling and clinical psychologists in the South African context. I argued that the Africa(n)-centred perspective was pluriversal (accepting of multiple epistemologies), endogenous (developing from within), and focuses on Africans not as the excluded Other but rather as the Subject at the centre of their lifeworlds. I elucidated curriculum practices within the professional training programmes as part of the investigation into the intransigence of Euroamerican-centric epistemologies in the professional training curriculum. I conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with 23 people, 8 of whom were course coordinators and 15 intern psychologists. The participants were from 5 universities falling into the 4 generic categories: Historically Black University (HBU), Historically White Afrikaans-speaking University (HWASU), merged university (MU), and Historically White English-speaking University (HWESU). For my analysis, I employed what I termed an Africa(n)-centred critical discourse analysis, which builds on the discursive turn in psychology, taking seriously the talk of people in the reproduction of socially unjust practices. All the interviews with the course coordinators and intern psychologists were dominated by talk of race and the Professional Board for Psychology. The interviews yielded a number of discourses, namely: 1) meritocracy, 2) diversity (which referenced issues of race, gender, and curriculum), 3) access, exclusion and privilege as related to language, 4) class, and 5) relevance (including social, market, and cultural relevance, with cultural relevance spoken about in relation to the curriculum). I conclude the dissertation by gesturing towards a constructive engagement (by which I mean a building) of an Africa(n)-centred professional training of counselling and clinical psychologists.PsychologyPh. D. (Psychology

The role of psychosocial factors in academic performance of first year psychology students at a historically white university

The success rate of students in higher education has been a cause for concern in South Africa (Letseka & Maile, 2008; Department of Higher Education and Training, 2015). This has been particularly concerning for first-year students, where the rate of attrition is especially high (Letseka, Cosser, Breier, and Visser, 2010). A number of factors have been identified in past research as having an effect on academic performance, which influences attrition and graduation. These factors include age (Justice, & Dornan, 2001), gender (Buchmann, & DiPrete, 2006), socio-economic status which is confounded by race (Letseka & Breier, 2008), type of educational background (Spreen, & Vally, 2006), and whether a student is a domestic or international student (Li, Chen, Duanmu, 2009), social capital (Young & Strelitz, 2014), whether the student is a first language speaker of the language of instruction at the university (Snowball, and Boughey, 2012), student wellbeing (Quinn, & Duckworth, 2007), locus of control (Findley, & Cooper, 1983), and frequency of lecture attendance (van Wallbeek, 2004). The study was conducted at Rhodes University, a small historically white South African institution. For this study, academic performance was measured using the participant’s midyear exam results for an introductory psychology cause, a course that straddles faculties. Of the 690 students registered for the course, 361 (52%) completed an electronic survey that explored the various factors associated with academic performance. A hierarchical regression analysis indicates that pre-university factors (age, gender, race, nationality, language, type of school, and socio-economic status) were the only significant predictors of academic performance, contributing 11% of the effect. Race and nationality, when all the other factors were controlled for, were the only predictors of academic performance. The implications of these findings pose troubling questions of the institutional culture at the university

Understanding how financial management can be improved within the operations division at South African Revenue Services.

M. Com. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2013.The study investigated how financial management can be improved in South African Revenue Services (SARS) Operations division. It underpins the need for SARS to continuously review procedures and actions in order to establish in which ways its Operation division can improve. In this case the focus is on financial management in order to improve effectiveness and efficiency in South African Revenue Service. The identified problem statement is “what mechanisms are required to facilitate continuous improvement in financial management to keep SARS on the cutting edge of efficiency?” The financial management practice of Operation s is discussed, taking into account relevant literature; certain issues that concerned the researcher are validated by participants while other issues were found not to be an issue. The study concludes with recommendations in order to improve the practice. The research maintained objectivity by allowing participants to reflect and comment on SARS Operations financial management as they see or experience it. The researcher used a qualitative approach with empirical data being constructed from interviews. Data collection was done through reviewing past literature including documents regarding policies, standard operating procedure and relevant documents for SARS. Semi-structured one-on-one interviews were used to engage in dialogue with employees in order to ascertain their views and attitudes. The study highlighted that SARS Operation’s financial management faced many challenges and establish what mechanisms are required to facilitate continuous improvement in financial management to keep SARS on the cutting edge of efficiency. Operations division need to commission a benchmark exercise (both externally and internally) to establish the most appropriate operating model, financial management, reporting and analysis in order to facilitate effective financial management

Symbolic violence: Enactments, articulations and resistances in research and beyond

In his pioneering work on the subject, French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (2001, p.1-2) defines symbolic violence as “a type of submission… a gentle violence, imperceptible and invisible even to its victims, exerted for the most part through purely symbolic channels of communication and cognition, recognition or even feeling....”. This Special Issue of African Safety Promotion: A Journal of Injury and Violence Prevention seeks to reflect on the multiple ways that symbolic violence is implicated in research; how research reproduces symbolic violence; and how hierarchies within research institutions determine the ‘legitimacy’ of specific knowledges and knowledge producers. We believe that a focus on symbolic violence is necessary to advance nuanced, complex and meaningful understandings of how different kinds of violence operate and are sustained in contemporary society

The role of the local authority in accommodating street trading : the case of Manzini City Council in Swaziland.

Thesis (M.Sc.U.R.P.)-University of Natal, 2002.Abstract not available.Pages incorrectly numbered between 31 and 36; however thesis is complete

Treatment of acute cryptococcal meningitis in HIV infected adults, with an emphasis on resource-limited settings

BACKGROUND: Despite the advent and increasingly wide availability of antiretroviral therapy, cryptococcal meningitis (CM) remains a significant cause of mortality and morbidity amongst individuals with HIV infection in resource-limited settings. The ideal management of CM remains unclear. The aim of this review is to assess the evidence for deciding on which antifungal regimen to use as well as other modalities of management to utilise especially resource poor settings in order to achieve the best possible outcome and enable an individual with CM to survive their acute illness and benefit from antiretroviral therapy. OBJECTIVES: To determine the most effective initial and consolidation treatment strategy for CM in HIV infected adults. SEARCH STRATEGY: The Cochrane HIV/AIDS group search strategy was used. Key words in the search included, meningitis, cryptococcus neoformans, treatment, trial, human immunodeficiency virus, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, antifungal agents, amphotericin, flucytosine, fluconazole, azole, lumbar puncture, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pressure and acetazolamide. SELECTION CRITERIA: Randomised of HIV-infected adults with a first episode of CM diagnosed on CSF examination, by India ink staining, CSF culture or cryptococcal antigen testing. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Data were extracted using standardised forms and analysed using Rev Man 4.2.7 software. MAIN RESULTS: Six studies are included in the review. Five of the studies compared antifungal treatments and one study addressed lowering intracranial pressure. This study was stopped early due to excess adverse effects. The results of the other five studies as summarised as follows.Mayanja-Kizza 1998 compared fluconazole to fluconazole with 5 flucytosine. The dose of fluconazole used 200mg initially is lower than the recommended initial dose of 400mg. No survival advantage was found with the use of 5 flucytosine in addition to fluconazole.Two studies Brouwer 2004 and van der Horst 1997 compared Amphotericin (AmB) to AmB with 5 flucytosine. Both drugs were given at currently recommended doses for 2 weeks. No survival difference was found at 14 days or at 10 weeks (only recorded in Brouwer 2004). There were significantly more patients with sterile CSF cultures at 14 days in the group that received AmB with flucytosine.Brouwer 2004 compared AmB given alone to AmB given with flucytosine and fluconazole alone or in combination. This was a small study and no differences in mortality were noted between the groups.Bicanic 2008 compared high to standard dose AmB both with flucytosine. There was no difference in mortality between the two groups or adverse events.Leenders 1997 compared standard AmB to liposomal AmB. There was no difference in death rates between the two groups. But there were significantly fewer side effects in the group treated with liposomal AmB. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: The main aim of this review was to determine the best treatment for cryptococcal meningitis in resource-limited settings. In these settings usually only AmB and fluconazole are available. No studies suitable for inclusion in the review were found that compared these two drugs. Therefore we are unable to recommend either treatment as superior to the other. The recommended treatment for CM is a combination of AmB and flucytosine. The optimal dosing of AmB remains unclear. Liposomal AmB is associated with less adverse events than AmB and may be useful in selected patients where resources allow.Future research into the management of cryptococcal meningitis in resource-limited settings should focus on the most effective use of medications that are available in these settings.Flucytosine in combination with AmB leads to faster and increased sterilisation of CSF compared to using AmB alone. As Flucytosine is often not available in developing countries, policy makers and national departments of heath should consider procuring this drug for HIV treatment programmes.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe