Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'The case for national action'

The research for this thesis started off as a long academic essay that sought to review a 1970s biography of Kenneth Kaunda.1 In its original focus, the study aimed at evaluating the work on the narrations of Kenneth Kaunda&rsquo
s life from a theoretical and critical perspective. Specifically it sought to evaluate the biography for its theoretical and methodological approaches, its attention to issues of sources, archives, narrative and history. In addition, it aimed at locating the biography in relation to debates over biography and history in South Africa. As I began my research for the long essay, it soon became apparent that the biography of Kenneth Kaunda ended its narration in 1964 and yet it was published ten years later in 1974. By ending its &lsquo
coverage&rsquo
of the narrations of Kenneth Kaunda&rsquo
s life in 1964, it seemed obvious that its coverage was in many ways similar to his autobiography that was published in 1962.2 The ending of the biography&rsquo
s coverage in 1964 thus seemed rather abrupt as it precluded any representations of the subject in the post 1964 period in which he had become President of Zambia. Kenneth Kaunda was 
resident of Zambia for nearly three decades (1964-1991) having led the &lsquo
final&rsquo
phase of the nationalist struggle for Independence through the United National Independence Party (UNIP). Surely, I surmised, the meanings of Kenneth Kaunda&rsquo
s life as nationalist leader, as presented in most of his biography, would differ from those of him as 
President? Upon evaluating the biography, it seemed to be a largely chronological and descriptive rather analytical account of the subject&rsquo
s life. However, what made it profound to me was the ways in which it entwined the narratives of Kenneth Kaunda&rsquo
s life with the events, dates 1 The biography of Kenneth Kaunda by Fergus Macpherson was the subject of the long essay. See Fergus Macpherson, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia: The Times and the Man (Lusaka: Oxford University Press, 1974). 2 Kenneth D. Kaunda, Zambia Shall Be Free: An Autobiography (London: Heinemann Educational Books 
td, 1962). and activities of the history of the Zambian nation. Some accounts inadvertently referred to this interconnection by referring to Kenneth Kaunda as the &lsquo
founder of Zambia&rsquo
. My 
 
exposure to various other debates around the production of history in the public domain such as through museums and national heritage sites or monuments prompted me to consider undertaking a study of the post-1964 historiography of Kenneth Kaunda. Rather than attempting to fill Kenneth Kaunda&rsquo
s post-1964 historiographical gap with a chronological account of his political life, I wanted to trace the narratives of Kenneth Kaunda&rsquo
s life in connection with the production of history in different domains in Zambia. This thesis thus aims at examining the political auto/biographical narrations of Kenneth Kaunda in relation to the production of nationalist history and national heritage in Zambia in the years following the country&rsquo
s Independence in 1964.4 One of the key questions that this study sought to engage with was: how did the &lsquo
representations&rsquo
of Kenneth Kaunda influence the ways in which Zambia&rsquo
s post-independence nationalist history and national heritage were produced? In seeking to provide an answer to the question, the study evaluated the auto/biography of Kenneth Kaunda itself, as well as how it reflects in the history texts utilised in Zambian schools and in history in the public domain through national heritage sites or monuments and museum exhibitions. The thesis will show that in Zambia, the auto/biography of Kenneth Kaunda has acquired significance through history as school lesson and as history in the public domain, through the production of national heritage sites and museum exhibitions.

This study investigated the reasons why FET part-time students enrolled at a FET college by examining their learning orientations. Guided by the literature, the focus was on the vocational orientation to learning and orientations to learning were further investigated within the vocational orientation based on orientations developed for part-time students found in the literature. In addition, it was investigated whether students&rsquo
expectations have been met and if they were satisfied with the college experience. Lastly, the study examined the relevance of college learning to the world of work and the contribution it made to the career development of learners in a globalising world.

The research shows that part-time students enrol at FET colleges predominantly for vocational reasons and the majority of the students were enrolled in order to advance their careers and associated with a vocational orientation to learning. However, it emerged that reasons for learning within the vocational orientation to learning are often multi-faceted and complex. The most important findings are 3 new learning orientations for part-time students that were identified: &lsquo
education for a qualification&rsquo
, &lsquo
education for adults who previously made the wrong choice&rsquo
and &lsquo
education for adults as a model for their children&rsquo
. Furthermore, the findings indicate that learners were satisfied with the programme they were enrolled in because they believed that the qualification would enable them to achieve their vocational aims which were primarily to find a new job, to be promoted and to increase their income. The findings suggest that the programme that was examined was relevant to the world of work, promoted employability and that it made a significant and important contribution to students&rsquo
career development in a globalising world.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the epistemological obstacles that mathematics students at undergraduate level encounter in coming to understand the limit concept. The role played by language and symbolism in understanding the limit concept was also investigated. A group of mathematics students at undergraduate level at the National University of Lesotho (NUL) was used as the sample for the study. Empirical data were collected by using interviews and questionnaires. These data were analysed using both the APOS framework and a semiotic perspective.

Within the APOS framework, the pieces of knowledge that have to be constructed in coming to understand the limit concept are actions, processes and objects. Actions are interiorised into processes and processes are encapsulated into objects. The conceptual structure is called a schema. In investigating the idea of limit within the context of a function some main epistemological obstacles that were encountered when actions were interiorised into processes are over-generalising and taking the limit value as the function value. For example, in finding the limit value L for f(x) as x tends to 0, 46 subjects out of 251 subjects said that they would calculate f(0) as the limit value. This method is appropriate for calculating the limit values for continuous functions. However, in this case, the method is generalised to all the functions. When these subjects encounter situations in which the functional value is equal to the limit value, they take the two to be the same. However, the two are different entities conceptually.

This mini-thesis attempts to explain the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure in public schools in the Western Cape. The mini-thesis uses the case study as research design to explore aspects such as the motivation for using ICT, funding models, infrastructure models, ICT curriculum integration and teacher development. In order to gather data on the above, interviews and observations are used as research tools. The study begins with the exploration of the history of ICT infrastructure in South African schools and subsequently an international perspective is added through the literature review. Officials and teachers of the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) were interviewed to obtain their perspectives and a school was visited to observe procured ICT infrastructure. The results revealed that the WCED is using the Khanya project to deliver an ICT infrastructure to schools and to provide facilitation in the integration of ICT into the curriculum. It further showed that due to the rapid change in technology, Khanya had to adapt the hardware configuration on a regular basis and that this put considerable strain on and already small budget for ICT. The challenge that emerged is the lack of adequate ICT training for teachers. This could potentially hamper the integration of ICT and if not addressed, could serious hamper the WCED in its quest to deliver a technology based curriculum. The study concludes with conclusions drawn for the data as well as recommendations for effective ICT integration.

In 2007, at its 52nd Conference in Polokwane, the African National Congress (ANC) called for the implementation of a National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme. The announcement resulted in much debate, with critics voicing concerns about the state of the public health system, lack of consultation and the expense of a NHI scheme. However, little attention has been paid to the 
human resource (HR) needs, despite the fact that 57% of recurrent expenditure on health1 is on HR. This research aimed to identify the HR requirements to support the implementation of an effective and equitable health system funded by a NHI in South Africa. An overview of the current burden of disease and distribution of HR is provided. Through interviewing key stakeholders the study attempted to elicit information about factors which will hamper or assist in developing such a health system, specifically looking at the HR situation and needs. The research explores HR 
odels and proposes key HR requirements for implementation of a health system funded by a NHI in South Africa, including skills mix and projected numbers of health workers and 
proposes ways to improve the deficient HR situation. Exploratory qualitative research methods were used comprising in-depth individual interviews, with a purposive sample of key informants, including: public health professionals and health managers (working in rural and urban areas)
researchers
academics and NGO managers. The contents of the interviews were analysed to identify common responses about and suggestions for HR requirements within the framework of a NHI. 1 Personal communication Dr Mark Blecher, Director Social Services (Health), National Treasury, 17 July 2009 The literature review includes policy documents, position papers and articles from journals and bulletins. Key informants were asked to identify literature and research material to support recommendations. The research findings indicate that despite the South African Government&rsquo
s expressed commitment to Primary Health Care (PHC), the National Department of Health has continued to support and sustain a clinical model of health service delivery (Motsoaledi, 2010), primarily utilising doctors and nurses. The clinic based services are limited in their ability to reach community level, and, being focused on curative aspects, are often inadequate with regard to prevention, health promotion and rehabilitation services. While the curricula of health professionals have been through some changes, the training has continued to be curative in focus and the clinical training sites have not been significantly expanded to include peripheral sites. While there are many Community Health Workers in the country, they remain disorganised and peripheral to the public health system. The mid level worker category 
has not been fully explored. Finally there are no clear strategies for recruitment and retention of health workers in rural and under-resourced areas. In addition to the continued use of a clinical model, transformation of the health system hasbeen hampered by inadequate numbers of health workers, particularly in the rural and periurban townships and informal settlements. There is no clear strategy for addressing the critical 
health worker shortage in under-resourced areas, particularly rural areas. The last section makes recommendations, which will be submitted to the relevant task teams working on the NHI. It is intended that recommendations arising out of the research will influence the process and decisions about HRH within a NHI funded health system.

Nearly one-third of the world&rsquo
s tortoises live in South Africa, but little is known about their habitat requirements and feeding ecology. Chersina angulata, the angulate tortoise, is endemic to 
southern Africa, with a wide distribution along the western and southern coasts. Because this tortoise occupies a number of different habitat types, it has always been considered a generalist 
herbivore, although little is known about its 
diet and other needs. This study evaluates the habitat characteristics and feeding ecology of C. angulata at two study sites in the southwestern 
 
 
Cape, the West Coast National Park (WCNP) and Dassen Island (DI). The WCNP is a large conserved area in the Fynbos biome, along the southwestern coast of South Africa, whereas DI is a 
small offshore island with low floral and faunal diversity, just south of the WCNP. The efficacy of three methods used to study the feeding ecology of herbivores, focal observations, macroscopic faecal analysis and histological analysis of scats, was evaluated. Plant cover, species diversity, and the variety of growth forms were substantially larger at the WCNP than on DI. 
In the WCNP, shrubs and grasses were the dominant growth forms but the vegetation also included herbs, succulents, restios, sedges and parasitic plants. A few perennial species such as 
the grass Ehrharta villosa, shrubs such as Helichrysum niveum, Nylandtia spinosa and Rhus spp., and succulents such as Carpobrotus edulis and Ruschia spp., provided most of the plant 
cover. DI had a depauperate flora, consisting of succulents and herbs, and ephemeral plants contributed more than perennials did to plant cover throughout the year. The succulents Mesembryanthemum crystallinum and Tetragonia fruticosa provided most of the cover on DI. Angulate tortoises are herbivores and 72 diet plants in 32 plant families were identified to the 
species or genus level. Several diet species, however, could not be identified. In 
addition to angiosperms, the tortoises&rsquo
diet included mosses, mushrooms, insects,snails and animal faeces. 
The most important growth forms in the diet were herbs and grasses. The diet of the WCNP tortoises was more diverse than the diet of DI tortoises, but the number of principal food items in 
the diet did not differ between the two sites. Over an annual cycle, WCNP tortoises had four principal food plants while DI tortoises had five principal food plants. At both sites, principal food 
 
plants changed with the season and few plants remained principal food items in more than one season. Cynodon dactylon was a principal food item in three of the four seasons in the WCNP, whereas Trachyandra divaricata was a principal food plant each season on DI. Most principal food plants were grass or herb species but the sedge Ficinia nigrescens, and a succulent that 
could be identified only to the family level (Aizoaceae), featured strongly in the spring diets of DI and WCNP tortoises, respectively. 
The three study methods did not provide the same type or quality of information about the feeding ecology of angulate tortoises. The small size and wary nature of angulate tortoises compromised focal studies because it was often not possible to see 
what the tortoises ate. This method, however, provided the interesting observation that rabbit 
faecal pellets contributed nearly 30% to summer and autumn diets on DI when food was scarce. 
Rabbit faeces may not only provide a source of nutrients but may also supplement the microflora, required to digest cellulose, in the tortoises&rsquo
guts. Macroscopic evaluation of the tortoises&rsquo
 
scats appeared to be an ineffective method to identify diet plants, and the bulk of the scat mass could not be identified. This indicates 
that angulate tortoises either selected food low in fibrous 
content or that the digestive system of the tortoises dealt efficiently with tough plant material. The macroscopic method was the only method that highlighted the large contribution of 
fruits / seeds to the diet of angulate tortoises. Since the tortoises digested many seeds only partially, or not at all, C. angulata is potentially an important agent of seed dispersal in the southwestern Cape. The macroscopic study showed that on DI, sand made up 28% of the scat mass in spring, whereas sand never made a substantial contribution to the scat composition of WCNP tortoises. Lithophagy may be an important strategy in a depauperate habitat, such as DI, because the abrasive action of sand may help with the digestion of tough plants, or the sand may 
provide the tortoises with important minerals that are deficient in their food plants.The histological analysis of scats provided the most comprehensive diet list for C. angulata. Selection indices 
based on data from the histological analysis indicated that angulate tortoises were highly selective in their food choice. Most of the principal food items were selected out of proportion to their 
availability and the tortoises avoided the most abundant plants in their habitats. Several factors, such as palatability, accessibility and profitability, may have influenced their food choice. The proportional similarity indices for WCNP and DI tortoises, respectively, were 0.31 and 0.16, confirming that C. angulata is a food specialist and not a food generalist as was previously thought. This factor should be considered in the management of this species and in future conservation planning of its habitat. 
 

Today, many countries’ programmes are better organised and have reached case detection and cure rates close to the targets set by WHO (i.e. 70% of cases effectively detected and 85% of detected cases cured). There are mounting arguments to enlarge the scope of activities to care for people affected by TB beyond the classical standardised strategies for diagnostic and treatment of tuberculosis. Indeed, it has become widely accepted that to increase further coverage of diagnosis and treatment of TB, it is necessary to address the economic and psychosocial problems of the people affected by tuberculosis, particularly for those having the least access to and worse quality of care. This will be possible only if, additionally to the current approaches, customised care can be developed after analysis to capture the complexity of care and interventions that take the specificity of local systems in their context into consideration. In chapter 1-2, we illustrate this through the review of the recent customisation of Directly Observed Treatment (DOT) as its naturally evolve in various contexts world-wide.

Developing an analysis that captures complex issues in PATB care means having a proper understanding of the interactions between parts of the local care systems to people affected by TB and identifications of the important patterns of these interactions. That is possible only if information different than the usual quantitative indicators is generated. We illustrate this in the part 2. We took the case of Nicaragua’s TB control programme, which is renowned for its performance in America. In that context, we illustrated the limits of a classical approach to TB control programme evaluation (chapter 2-3) and gave four examples of care process analysis that illustrated the economic and psychosocial problems of people affected by tuberculosis (PATB) (chapter 2-4 to 2-7).

Developing customised system-sensitive interventions to improve the care process means recognising that the interventions cannot be isolated from the organisational context and social dynamics during changes. Thinking must therefore move beyond the design of universal, standardised tool kits. We illustrate specifically in the part 3 the importance of combined local, national and international processes in improving the care process for people affected by TB in Nicaragua: lessons from successful and unsuccessful local and customised processes of implementing interventions in four local health systems (chapter 3-4) can be an opportunity for a health system research unit in a public health school to build a strategic process of care improvement at national level (through scaling up and through the building of a conducive environment) (chapter 3-5).

As a conclusion of this work, we propose in part 4 a three-level reflection through discussion of patterns emerging from the analysis done in the previous chapters: (1) patterns of care and (2) of organisation of health care system are presented in the form of an analytical framework; (3) patterns of regulation and management to improve care for PATB are presented together with a strategy to work on it.

Doctorat en Sciences de la santé publique
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This research paper pays particular attention to the EAC because of its unique composition of four LDCs46 and 1 DC47 and the fact that three of these countries are landlocked least developed countries (LLDCs).48 The EAC was notified as a RTA to the WTO under the Enabling Clause on 9 October 2000 and registered as a Custom Union49 under WT/COMTD/N/14.50 The notification of the EAC under the Enabling Clause is due to the nature of composition of members therein and to the fact that the Enabling Clause does not require regional trading arrangements to cover substantially all trade, or to achieve free trade in the bloc within ten years after notification. Additionally, it provides an avenue for giving special consideration to the LDCs through making concessions and contributions,51 allows automatic exemptions from MFN (non-discrimination) treatment in favour of DCs,52 and thus allows other WTO members to accord more favourable treatment to DCs in many cases without according the same treatment to other WTO members.53.

This research paper aims to understand and analyse the CISG, its history, scope and structure, and to evaluate its impact on SADC.The main ideas that this paper will consider are: what is the CISG
 
Its history, scope and structure
 
Its impact on developing countries
 
Its relevance to developing countries within SADC
and How the implementation of the CISG improved these developing countries within SADC.

Kangaroo mother care (KMC) was first initiated in Colombia due to shortages of incubators and the incidence of severe hospital infections of new-born infants during hospital stay (Feldman, 2004). Currently it is identified by UNICEF as a universally available and biologically sound method of care for all new-borns, particularly for low birth weight infants (Department of Reproductive Health and Research, 2003) in both developed and developing countries. The Western Cape Provincial Government implemented a policy on KMC as part of their strategy to decrease the morbidity and mortality of premature infants in 2003 (Kangaroo Mother Care Provincial task team, 2003). Essential components of KMC are: skin-to-skin contact for 24 hours per day (or as great a part of the day as possible), exclusive breastfeeding and support to the motherinfant dyad. Successful implementation of KMC requires relevant education of nurses, education of mothers on KMC by nursing staff, monitoring of the implementation of KMC by nurses, planning for a staff mix with varying levels of skill and experience with KMC, the identification of institution specific barriers to the implementation of KMC, and the implementation of institution specific strategies to overcome these barriers (Wallin,et al., 2005
Bergman &
Jurisco, 1994
Cattaneo, et al., 1998). This study aims to determine the knowledge of and attitude towards kangaroo mother care, of nursing staff and kangaroo mothers in the Eastern sub-district of Cape Town.