Strategies used to cater for students with diverse academic backgrounds in the provision of textile, clothing and design programmes: a case study of two universities of technology in Zimbabwe
- Authors: Chimbindi, Felisia
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Multicultural education -- Zimbabwe -- Cross-cultural studies Inclusive education -- Zimbabwe -- Cross-cultural studies
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/4948 , vital:28871
- Description: Universities admit students from diverse backgrounds and have an obligation to accommodate all the students in various educational programmes to ensure that they acquire relevant skills and knowledge. The provision of Textile, Clothing and Design programmes to students with diverse academic backgrounds in universities of technology in Zimbabwe has led to various concerns raised by the textile and clothing stakeholders. The concerns include poor performance of students, high student failure rate, high student drop out, late completion of programmes by students, and other problems emanating from curriculum implementation approaches used by the lecturers. This study therefore, sought to find out how students with diverse academic backgrounds are catered for in the provision of TCD programmes in the two sampled universities of technology in Zimbabwe, with a view to assist the students and to enhance the quality of TCD provision. The study adopted a post-positivism paradigm and used a mixed method research approach that integrated concurrent qualitative and quantitative procedures in data collection, analysis and interpretation. A questionnaire, interviews and document analysis were used to collect data from respondents. Purposive sampling procedure was used to select 36 TCD lecturers, 2 universities’ quality assurance directors, 2 TCD faculty deans of studies, and 2 department chairpersons. Collected data were analyzed using statistical and non-statistical procedures. The study revealed that catering for students with diverse academic backgrounds was practiced in the two universities despite the absence of a curriculum implementation policy to guide the provision of TCD programmes to students with diverse academic backgrounds at university level. It emerged that catering for students with diverse academic backgrounds in implementing TCD curricular at the two sampled universities was faced with various challenges that include lack of lecturer training with regard to catering for students from diverse academic backgrounds and inadequate lecturer training in depth TCD subject content knowledge and ICT teaching technology packages. The study also revealed that there is not enough university and stakeholder participation with regards to supporting and monitoring curriculum implementation process to cater for students with diverse academic backgrounds. Although there were challenges encountered in catering for students with diverse academic backgrounds, the study reveals that there are pockets of good practice in some curriculum implementation strategies implemented by the two institutions such as use of student centered teaching and instructional approaches, university support and lecturer commitment to assist the students. The study findings conclude that although catering for TCD students with diverse academic backgrounds was being practiced in the two universities of technology, there are very critical issues observed over the programmes implementation process that include absence of curriculum implementation policy, lack of training of lecturers and inadequate participative TCD stakeholder involvement. Based on the study findings and reviewed literature, the researcher suggests an alternative curriculum implementation framework for catering for students with diverse academic backgrounds that may help improve effectiveness of university programmes implementation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Chimbindi, Felisia
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Multicultural education -- Zimbabwe -- Cross-cultural studies Inclusive education -- Zimbabwe -- Cross-cultural studies
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/4948 , vital:28871
- Description: Universities admit students from diverse backgrounds and have an obligation to accommodate all the students in various educational programmes to ensure that they acquire relevant skills and knowledge. The provision of Textile, Clothing and Design programmes to students with diverse academic backgrounds in universities of technology in Zimbabwe has led to various concerns raised by the textile and clothing stakeholders. The concerns include poor performance of students, high student failure rate, high student drop out, late completion of programmes by students, and other problems emanating from curriculum implementation approaches used by the lecturers. This study therefore, sought to find out how students with diverse academic backgrounds are catered for in the provision of TCD programmes in the two sampled universities of technology in Zimbabwe, with a view to assist the students and to enhance the quality of TCD provision. The study adopted a post-positivism paradigm and used a mixed method research approach that integrated concurrent qualitative and quantitative procedures in data collection, analysis and interpretation. A questionnaire, interviews and document analysis were used to collect data from respondents. Purposive sampling procedure was used to select 36 TCD lecturers, 2 universities’ quality assurance directors, 2 TCD faculty deans of studies, and 2 department chairpersons. Collected data were analyzed using statistical and non-statistical procedures. The study revealed that catering for students with diverse academic backgrounds was practiced in the two universities despite the absence of a curriculum implementation policy to guide the provision of TCD programmes to students with diverse academic backgrounds at university level. It emerged that catering for students with diverse academic backgrounds in implementing TCD curricular at the two sampled universities was faced with various challenges that include lack of lecturer training with regard to catering for students from diverse academic backgrounds and inadequate lecturer training in depth TCD subject content knowledge and ICT teaching technology packages. The study also revealed that there is not enough university and stakeholder participation with regards to supporting and monitoring curriculum implementation process to cater for students with diverse academic backgrounds. Although there were challenges encountered in catering for students with diverse academic backgrounds, the study reveals that there are pockets of good practice in some curriculum implementation strategies implemented by the two institutions such as use of student centered teaching and instructional approaches, university support and lecturer commitment to assist the students. The study findings conclude that although catering for TCD students with diverse academic backgrounds was being practiced in the two universities of technology, there are very critical issues observed over the programmes implementation process that include absence of curriculum implementation policy, lack of training of lecturers and inadequate participative TCD stakeholder involvement. Based on the study findings and reviewed literature, the researcher suggests an alternative curriculum implementation framework for catering for students with diverse academic backgrounds that may help improve effectiveness of university programmes implementation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Investigating and expanding learning in co-management of fisheries resources to inform extension training
- Kachilonda, Dick Daffu Kachanga
- Authors: Kachilonda, Dick Daffu Kachanga
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Fishery management -- Study and teaching -- Malawi , Environmental education -- Malawi , Social learning -- Malawi , Community-based conservation -- Malawi , Learning -- Philosophy , Critical realism , Education -- Social aspects -- Research
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2053 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1018659
- Description: This study investigates and expands learning associated with the co-management of fisheries resources to inform extension and training in the fisheries sector in two case study sites in Malawi. The study was located in the field of environmental education with a specific focus on community learning, agency and sustainability practices in co-management of fisheries resources. It focuses on how fisheries stakeholder learning can be mediated through expansive social learning processes to inform extension and training in the Malawi fisheries sector and aims at understanding learning as an emergent, agency centred process of change through social learning models that are said to have power to mobilise community agency for change. The empirical research for the study was conducted in two Malawian fishing communities: in Lake Malombe and the south-east arm of Lake Malawi using qualitative case study research design. The two sites were selected because they were the first sites in Malawi to implement fisheries co-management programmes following the failure of centralised management of fisheries resources. Data was generated through interviews, focus group discussions, document analysis, observations and change laboratory workshops in both sites. The two sites fall under one administrative office based in Mangochi where the two important institutions of the sector – the Fisheries Research Unit of the Department of Fisheries and the Fisheries College (a government institution responsible for the training of extension services) are also based. Both sites have implemented new governance structures named Beach Village Committees which are community-based organisational structures that function in parallel with traditional authorities to manage the fishery. Contextual and literature review work showed that extension services and programmes over the past hundred years, as observed in the fisheries sector in Malawi and in extension services elsewhere, have co-evolved with approaches to natural resources management. Early approaches to natural resources management involved traditional management (associated extension services and programmes were community based); later fisheries governance practices changed to centralised management and associated extension approaches were mainly top-down involving command and control or technology transfer. These early approaches have been problematic as resource users were pushed away from their own resources and were viewed as poachers. This resulted in loss of ownership among resources users. Recently in Malawi, after the change of government to democracy in 1994, fisheries management policy focused on co-management and/or adaptive co-management approaches, an approach that has also been adopted in other African water bodies. This has implications for extension service programmes in the fisheries sector that are not yet well defined. The study’s literature review revealed that co-management approaches assume collaborative learning, or co-learning, also termed social learning, or approaches that promote the engagement of different actors who are working on shared practice. They also assume a new form of agency among co-management stakeholders and extension workers. However, the theoretical foundations for establishing co-learning or social learning approaches in support of co-management policies are not well established in the fisheries co-management sector in Malawi, nor are the practices of how to support co-learning amongst diverse stakeholders in the fisheries co-management in the Lake Malawi context. This study sought to address this gap in knowledge and practice.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Kachilonda, Dick Daffu Kachanga
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Fishery management -- Study and teaching -- Malawi , Environmental education -- Malawi , Social learning -- Malawi , Community-based conservation -- Malawi , Learning -- Philosophy , Critical realism , Education -- Social aspects -- Research
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2053 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1018659
- Description: This study investigates and expands learning associated with the co-management of fisheries resources to inform extension and training in the fisheries sector in two case study sites in Malawi. The study was located in the field of environmental education with a specific focus on community learning, agency and sustainability practices in co-management of fisheries resources. It focuses on how fisheries stakeholder learning can be mediated through expansive social learning processes to inform extension and training in the Malawi fisheries sector and aims at understanding learning as an emergent, agency centred process of change through social learning models that are said to have power to mobilise community agency for change. The empirical research for the study was conducted in two Malawian fishing communities: in Lake Malombe and the south-east arm of Lake Malawi using qualitative case study research design. The two sites were selected because they were the first sites in Malawi to implement fisheries co-management programmes following the failure of centralised management of fisheries resources. Data was generated through interviews, focus group discussions, document analysis, observations and change laboratory workshops in both sites. The two sites fall under one administrative office based in Mangochi where the two important institutions of the sector – the Fisheries Research Unit of the Department of Fisheries and the Fisheries College (a government institution responsible for the training of extension services) are also based. Both sites have implemented new governance structures named Beach Village Committees which are community-based organisational structures that function in parallel with traditional authorities to manage the fishery. Contextual and literature review work showed that extension services and programmes over the past hundred years, as observed in the fisheries sector in Malawi and in extension services elsewhere, have co-evolved with approaches to natural resources management. Early approaches to natural resources management involved traditional management (associated extension services and programmes were community based); later fisheries governance practices changed to centralised management and associated extension approaches were mainly top-down involving command and control or technology transfer. These early approaches have been problematic as resource users were pushed away from their own resources and were viewed as poachers. This resulted in loss of ownership among resources users. Recently in Malawi, after the change of government to democracy in 1994, fisheries management policy focused on co-management and/or adaptive co-management approaches, an approach that has also been adopted in other African water bodies. This has implications for extension service programmes in the fisheries sector that are not yet well defined. The study’s literature review revealed that co-management approaches assume collaborative learning, or co-learning, also termed social learning, or approaches that promote the engagement of different actors who are working on shared practice. They also assume a new form of agency among co-management stakeholders and extension workers. However, the theoretical foundations for establishing co-learning or social learning approaches in support of co-management policies are not well established in the fisheries co-management sector in Malawi, nor are the practices of how to support co-learning amongst diverse stakeholders in the fisheries co-management in the Lake Malawi context. This study sought to address this gap in knowledge and practice.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Studies in asymmetric synthesis
- Authors: Learmonth, Robin Alec
- Date: 1991
- Subjects: Organic compounds -- Synthesis Stereochemistry Organosilicon compounds Chirality Chemical tests and reagents
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:4353 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1005018
- Description: The concept of combining two well established areas of organic chemistry, viz., organosilicon chemistry and the use of chiral auxiliaries, into a viable, alternative method of asymmetric synthesis has only very recently begun to receive attention. At the outset of this investigation, no asymmetric reactions of silyl enol ethers, chiral by virtue of optically active substituents on the silicon, had been reported. A range of novel chiral silyl enol ethers have thus been prepared from a variety of ketones, including pinacolone, cyclohexanone, and α-tetralone, and employing menthol, borneol, and cholesterol as chiral auxiliaries. These preparations have been achieved via several distinct routes, including a novel convergent approach involving the isolation of either the chloro(menthyloxy)dimethylsilane or the (bornyloxy)chlorodimethylsilane. The MS and NMR spectra of these silyl enol ethers were examined in detail and, in the case of the crystalline cholesteryloxy silyl enol ether, the X-ray structure has been determined. The potential of chloroalkoxysilanes to act as general, chiral derivatizing agents has been established by the preparation of diastereomeric silyl acetal mixtures of racemic secondary alcohols (e.g. I-phenylethanol and 2-octanol). The experimental diastereomeric ratios, obtained by GLC and ¹H NMR spectroscopy, approached the expected value of unity, confirming the potential of the alkoxychlorosilanes as chiral probes. The chiral silyl enol ethers have been successfully oxidized to the corresponding α-siloxy ketones employing MCPBA, MMPP, and 2-(phenylsulphonyl)-3-phenyloxaziridine as oxidizing agents and the diastereomeric excesses obtained, which varied from 0 to 16%, indicated some potential for stereochemical control. Alkylation and hydroxyalkylation reactions of the silyl enol ethers have yielded the expected α-iert-butyl and β-hydroxy ketones in good to excellent material yields, with the enantiomeric excesses, as determined by chiral shift reagent studies, reaching 14%. To improve the stereo control in these reactions, attempts have been made to prepare chiral silyl enol ethers with auxiliaries possessing the potential for transition state complex co-ordination in the reactions under consideration. The preparation of such silyl enol ethers, incorporating the proline-derived auxiliaries, N-methyl-2-hydroxymethylpyrrolidine and 2-methoxymethylpyrrolidine met with only limited success. In an alternative approach, three derivatives of 2,3-dihydroxybornane have been prepared. However, two of these auxiliaries, viz., 3-exo-benzyloxy-2-exo-hydroxybornane and 3-exo-(1-methoxyethoxy)-2-exo-hydroxybornane failed to form silyl enol ethers, even under considerably more vigorous conditions than normally employed. The third derivative, 3,3-ethylenedioxy-2-hydroxybornane has been successfully utilized in the preparation of a pinacolone-derived chiral silyl enol ether. Hydroxyalkylation of this compound with benzaldehyde has yielded the β-hydroxyketone with significantly improved enantiomeric excess (26%) and a transition state complex has been proposed to rationalize this improvement.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1991
- Authors: Learmonth, Robin Alec
- Date: 1991
- Subjects: Organic compounds -- Synthesis Stereochemistry Organosilicon compounds Chirality Chemical tests and reagents
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:4353 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1005018
- Description: The concept of combining two well established areas of organic chemistry, viz., organosilicon chemistry and the use of chiral auxiliaries, into a viable, alternative method of asymmetric synthesis has only very recently begun to receive attention. At the outset of this investigation, no asymmetric reactions of silyl enol ethers, chiral by virtue of optically active substituents on the silicon, had been reported. A range of novel chiral silyl enol ethers have thus been prepared from a variety of ketones, including pinacolone, cyclohexanone, and α-tetralone, and employing menthol, borneol, and cholesterol as chiral auxiliaries. These preparations have been achieved via several distinct routes, including a novel convergent approach involving the isolation of either the chloro(menthyloxy)dimethylsilane or the (bornyloxy)chlorodimethylsilane. The MS and NMR spectra of these silyl enol ethers were examined in detail and, in the case of the crystalline cholesteryloxy silyl enol ether, the X-ray structure has been determined. The potential of chloroalkoxysilanes to act as general, chiral derivatizing agents has been established by the preparation of diastereomeric silyl acetal mixtures of racemic secondary alcohols (e.g. I-phenylethanol and 2-octanol). The experimental diastereomeric ratios, obtained by GLC and ¹H NMR spectroscopy, approached the expected value of unity, confirming the potential of the alkoxychlorosilanes as chiral probes. The chiral silyl enol ethers have been successfully oxidized to the corresponding α-siloxy ketones employing MCPBA, MMPP, and 2-(phenylsulphonyl)-3-phenyloxaziridine as oxidizing agents and the diastereomeric excesses obtained, which varied from 0 to 16%, indicated some potential for stereochemical control. Alkylation and hydroxyalkylation reactions of the silyl enol ethers have yielded the expected α-iert-butyl and β-hydroxy ketones in good to excellent material yields, with the enantiomeric excesses, as determined by chiral shift reagent studies, reaching 14%. To improve the stereo control in these reactions, attempts have been made to prepare chiral silyl enol ethers with auxiliaries possessing the potential for transition state complex co-ordination in the reactions under consideration. The preparation of such silyl enol ethers, incorporating the proline-derived auxiliaries, N-methyl-2-hydroxymethylpyrrolidine and 2-methoxymethylpyrrolidine met with only limited success. In an alternative approach, three derivatives of 2,3-dihydroxybornane have been prepared. However, two of these auxiliaries, viz., 3-exo-benzyloxy-2-exo-hydroxybornane and 3-exo-(1-methoxyethoxy)-2-exo-hydroxybornane failed to form silyl enol ethers, even under considerably more vigorous conditions than normally employed. The third derivative, 3,3-ethylenedioxy-2-hydroxybornane has been successfully utilized in the preparation of a pinacolone-derived chiral silyl enol ether. Hydroxyalkylation of this compound with benzaldehyde has yielded the β-hydroxyketone with significantly improved enantiomeric excess (26%) and a transition state complex has been proposed to rationalize this improvement.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1991
Drummer Hodge : the poetry of the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902)
- Authors: Van Wyk Smith, Malvern
- Date: 1976
- Subjects: War poetry -- History and criticism South African War, 1899-1902 -- Literature and the war South African War, 1899-1902 -- Art and the war
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2252 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003919
- Description: From Preface: This is not a history of the Boer War; nor is it an exclusively literary study of the poetry of that war. If the work that follows has to be defined generically at all, it may be called an exercise in cultural history. It attempts to assess the impact of a particular war on the literary culture, especially the poetry, of both the participants and the observers, whether in South Africa, in Britain and the rest of the English-speaking world, or in Europe. An assumption made throughout this study is that war poetry is not only verse written by men who are or have been under fire. Just as 'War poetry is not to be confused with political, polemical, or patriotic verse, although it can contain elements of all of these, so it is also the work of observers at home as much as that of soldiers at the front. It follows that I have not allowed myself the academic luxury of selecting, on the basis of literary merit only, a handful of outstanding war poems for rigorous analysis and discussion. "Doggerel can express the heart" wrote one of these late-Victorian soldierly versifiers, and I have roamed widely in the attempt to assemble the material which, I believe, records the full range of the impact that the Boer War made not only on Briton and Boer, but on the worId at large. A major thesis of this study is that the Boer War marked the clear emergence of the kind of war poetry which we have come to associate almost exclusively with the First World War. Poems in the style and spirit of "The Charge of the Light Brigade" were written in profusion, but the work which serves as this study's masthead, Hardy's "Drummer Hodge," clearly has --like many of its contemporaries-- more in common with Owen's verse than with Tennyson's. The reasons for the appearance of such poetry are discussed in Chapter 1; the rest of the book provides the evidence of it.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1976
- Authors: Van Wyk Smith, Malvern
- Date: 1976
- Subjects: War poetry -- History and criticism South African War, 1899-1902 -- Literature and the war South African War, 1899-1902 -- Art and the war
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2252 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003919
- Description: From Preface: This is not a history of the Boer War; nor is it an exclusively literary study of the poetry of that war. If the work that follows has to be defined generically at all, it may be called an exercise in cultural history. It attempts to assess the impact of a particular war on the literary culture, especially the poetry, of both the participants and the observers, whether in South Africa, in Britain and the rest of the English-speaking world, or in Europe. An assumption made throughout this study is that war poetry is not only verse written by men who are or have been under fire. Just as 'War poetry is not to be confused with political, polemical, or patriotic verse, although it can contain elements of all of these, so it is also the work of observers at home as much as that of soldiers at the front. It follows that I have not allowed myself the academic luxury of selecting, on the basis of literary merit only, a handful of outstanding war poems for rigorous analysis and discussion. "Doggerel can express the heart" wrote one of these late-Victorian soldierly versifiers, and I have roamed widely in the attempt to assemble the material which, I believe, records the full range of the impact that the Boer War made not only on Briton and Boer, but on the worId at large. A major thesis of this study is that the Boer War marked the clear emergence of the kind of war poetry which we have come to associate almost exclusively with the First World War. Poems in the style and spirit of "The Charge of the Light Brigade" were written in profusion, but the work which serves as this study's masthead, Hardy's "Drummer Hodge," clearly has --like many of its contemporaries-- more in common with Owen's verse than with Tennyson's. The reasons for the appearance of such poetry are discussed in Chapter 1; the rest of the book provides the evidence of it.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1976
- «
- ‹
- 1
- ›
- »