TalkAfrique

January 31, 2011

Sex for Grades Leads to Girl’s Death

Sakhile Modise

Education officials in South African have shut down a high school following an incident involving an 18 year old female learner. The young student committed suicide using insecticide after she was told that she had failed her examinations.

The student aged 18 and identified as Trish Ramavhoya took her life after she “was made to fail” as punishment for repeatedly turning down indecent sexual advances from her tutor, reports say.

South African media have reported that the Mpumalanga education department was on Monday (January 31) forced to suspend 13 tutors as well as a principal of Vezilwazi Secondary School after canceling all reports and ordering the remarking of scripts in order to reissue valid reports to learners.

Mpumalanga is within KwaZulu Natal province in the eastern part of the vast Southern African country. According to various reports, some learners were allegedly asked to pay bribes of up to R500 (about $60) or offer sexual favours to staff in return for a pass.

“Grade 11 pupil Trish Ramavhoya, 18, allegedly refused to pay or sleep with a teacher and decided to end her life using an insecticide on her birthday when she discovered that she had indeed failed as a teacher had promised” one publication reported.

“The class teacher said there was no way Trish could fail because she was a straight A pupil” continued the report adding that “Trish would never pass unless she slept with him (the teacher)”
Though statistics of suicides committed under such circumstances (sex for pass) were not immediately available, cases like these are widespread in South Africa where many girls have been impregnated by teachers who asked for sexual favors in exchange for passing grades.

Their vulnerability has contributed to young girls also falling prey to their male counterparts. And Trish Ramavhoya’s case has revealed the rampant rape cases that are hardly ever punished, leaving most tutors and male students to go scot free.

In November, 2010, the South African media reported a horrific incident involving a 15-year-old Johannesburg girl who was alleged raped by her classmates including two 16-year-olds and a 14-year-old.

A video of the act which was circulated among pupils had been filmed by at least 10 pupils who stood by as the act took place.

January 31, 2011February 3, 2011

African Anti-malaria Initiative Offers Good Model for Tackling Other Ills, Un Chief

31 January 2011 –Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today highlighted the success achieved by the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA) in saving thousands of lives across the continent, saying it offers a good model for tackling other social ills.

“The African Leaders Malaria Alliance is breaking down barriers, forging partnerships and getting supplies to families in record time,” Mr. Ban said in remarks at the ALMA event in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on the sidelines of the summit meeting of the African Union.

“This is remarkable progress. We need to encourage it and use the response to malaria as a model for battling other illnesses and social ills,” he added.

Malaria kills almost one million Africans every year and affects over 200 million more, mostly pregnant women and children under five years of age, resulting in at least $12 billion of costs every year through lost development and opportunity.

Launched in September 2009 in New York, ALMA is a high-level forum set up to oversee the efficient procurement, distribution, and utilization of malaria control measures, with the aim of ending unnecessary deaths from the disease by 2015.

“This alliance against malaria is stopping the disease and saving thousands of lives. It is a great success story. You are bringing us closer to our Millennium Development Goal on malaria and showing how we can reach all the MDGs: with commitment at the highest level,” Mr. Ban stated, referring to the goal of halting and reversing the incidence of malaria by 2015.

Just last month, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) announced that malaria deaths declined by 10 per cent between 2008 and 2009. In 11 African countries, the disease’s deadly toll has been cut by more than half since the year 2000.

“Just as malaria is carried by a mosquito that goes from person to person, so does our campaign seek to reach people just as directly,” said the Secretary-General. “We want to give every community health worker, every family, every child the tools and protection they need.

“We’ve delivered over 290 million nets to Africa since 2008. More nets and treatments are on their way. Universal coverage is not just a hope; it is within our reach.”

UN News

January 31, 2011February 15, 2011

The Best Time to Start was Yesterday (Part 1 &2 )

Part 1

Procrastination is the thief of time. What should be done today should not be delayed till tomorrow. Today is the tomorrow spoken about yesterday. I know you have several ideas on your mind at the moment. For instance, for quite some time you have been dreaming about starting that business of yours or perhaps it is that your book which you are yet to write. Whatever it is that you have on your mind, you must know that nothing moves unless it is moved. In fact, Newton’s law of motion states that every object will remain in a position of rest unless an external force is applied to it. The external force in this sense is YOU. You need to do something about that idea of yours. You must take the first step. After all, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step in the right direction. So, start now.

Part 2

In Part 1 of this piece, I emphasized the fact that what could be done today should not be delayed till tomorrow. Should you still be at sea with the essence of this article, let me quickly share this experience with you. In January, 2010, I told a colleague about a publisher in Germany. This firm publishes academic works free of charge with royalty paid at the end of the year. While my colleague is yet to come up with a single manuscript as at the time of writing this piece because he keeps on postponing sending his work to the outfit, yours sincerely has published two books already with the firm!

The challenge with my colleague is that he is waiting for “the right time” to publish his masterpiece. My fear for him however is that he does not wait forever. I am certain that several masterpieces are wasting away at the cemeteries because they were never written! In a nutshell, you need to know that no one will celebrate you for what you would have done. You will only be celebrated for what you did. The best time to act on your idea was, indeed, yesterday.

Isaac Oluyi is a motivational writer and speaker based in Nigeria. He speaks and writes on attitude, self-discovery and wealth creation. Isaac is the Administrative Officer at the National Centre for Technology Management at Obafemi Awolowo University.

January 30, 2011

Can the Global Fund Weather The Corruption Storm?

Global-Fund-Ambassador — Global Fund Ambassador Carla Bruni-Sarkozy with executive director Michel Kazatchkine and Melinda Gates in Benin. Photograph: John Rae/The Global Fund

By Sarah Boseley

Germany, Ireland and Sweden have suspended payments to the Global Fund to fight Aids, TB and Malaria over the corrupt use of grants by African countries. Could the media storm trigger a domino effect among donors that could severely undermine the fund’s capacity to help the poor?

Until a few days ago, the Global Fund to fight Aids, TB and Malaria had the enviable reputation of being one of the cleanest and safest channels of donor money to the poor in the developing world. Everybody knows there is corruption in Africa – but it never tainted the Global Fund. But now Germany, the third biggest donor to the fund after the US and France, has suspended the €200m it pledged for 2011, asking for an investigation into the fraud and misuse of money in four countries – Mauritania, Mali, Zambia and Djibouti. Ireland has also put its wallet away for the moment, delaying a decision on whether to continue its donations to the fund.

What a difference a few days makes – and how fragile is reputation. The fund now fears a domino effect. As bank crashes have taught us, loss of confidence can do terrible things. And at a time of economic recession, revelations like these can give donor governments just the excuse they need to pull the plug.

So the consequences are potentially very serious. But what has happened to cause the first dominoes to tumble? You’d think it must be some new and terrible revelation. In fact, it was a story on an agency newswire based on a report from October that is on the Global Fund’s website. Although the fund does well in preventing its money being misused, it can’t stop it entirely. The report of its inspector general detailed the corruption that had been found in a number of countries – and the steps that had been taken to root out the corruption and get the money back. The total amount of money involved is US$34m. That is 0.3% of the $13bn the fund has dispensed for disease-fighting programmes since 2007.

The frauds were not a secret. The fund, which has in the past been praised for its transparency, issued a series of press releases – the first one in September 2009, when it suspended grants to Mauritania. In June 2010, it announced that action had been taken against Zambia, which I wrote about. In December, the fund announced it had suspended grants to Mali.

So given that 0.3% ended up in the wrong hands is pretty good going – as many an NGO or business working in Africa will tell you. This should have been a storm in a teacup. But the agency story was followed up by Fox News, which laid into the fund with both fists.

Germany’s decision may have much to do with disagreements between development minister Dirk Niebel and chancellor Angela Merkel over how to prune the aid budget. Ireland’s is inevitably connected with its financial problems. Ironically, Sweden, which suspended its grant to the fund last October after seeing the inspector general’s report, was thought to have been completely satisfied by the explanations it was given and be about to announce its reinstatement, but is unlikely to do so until things quieten down.

But the real fear for the fund’s supporters will be that the storm may have been whipped up by those who want the US to slash its spending on foreign aid and will not only have the Global Fund in their sights, but also the UN. The Global Fund is already short of the money it hoped it would have to pass on to developing countries in the next two years. If the US cuts back, there can be no doubt that the cost will be measured in lives.

Sarah Boseley has won a number of awards for her work on HIV/Aids in Africa, including the One World Media Award (twice)

January 30, 2011February 1, 2011

What a Choice

Robert Mugabe with the Iranian President

Africa Union leader currently meeting holding a summit in Ethiopia, Addis Ababa have roped in one of their controversial counterpart, Robert Mugabe to mediate in the Ivory Coast crisis.

News from Ethiopia of Mugabe’s drafting in has angered human rights activists and his political foes in Zimbabwe.

Reports say Mugabe, 86 joins in the expanded mediating team that includes South Africa leader, Jacob Zuma, Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria and the President of Mauritania.

The AU on Friday announced the setting up of a five-member heads of state panel to make binding recommendations on the Ivory Coast rivals within a month.

AU Commission chief Jean Ping said Saturday the panel would help Ouattara “exercise power” through a negotiated deal, reports say.

African Union leaders began talks Sunday to reach a common strategy on resolving Ivory Coast’s protracted crisis and tackle other continental trouble spots.

The drafting in of Mugabe has been seen by his rivals as an endorsement of being ‘legitimately elected” by African leaders.

“This is a travesty of justice. How does Mugabe whose country is under South Africa Development Community (SADC) mediation be chosen to be a peace broker in another country whose problems are similar his” asked Steven Chivero of Stand Up for Zimbabwe.

Chivero said this shows that African leaders “fear Mugabe”.

Other groupings said Mugabe’s appointment would “have a negative bearing on SADC mediation role” in Zimbabwe.

Mugabe, who participated in Friday’s Peace and Security Council decision kept power through a negotiated agreement after an apparent electoral defeat.

Ivory Coast has been gripped by a political crisis since the Election Commission named Alassane Quattara, 69, as the winner of presidential elections in November 2010. But incumbent Laurent Gbagbo, 65, has refused to concede defeat, alleging voter fraud.

Last week, a Harare based think tank, Mass Public Opinion Institute said Mugabe still wields too much political influence despite the Global Political Agreement (GPA) that’s stipulate that he should share it with premier Morgan Tsvangirai.

The think tanks survey says the majority of Zimbabweans felt that the government has failed to ensure a fair distribution of power, with Mugabe wielding excessive power compared to his counterparts in the coalition.

“Power was not shared equally in this inclusive government as an overwhelming 76% believe that the President has real executive power compared to the prime minister,” reads part of the findings of the survey conducted between August 18 and August 23 2010.

Thirty-one per cent of the respondents felt that the partners in government were not co-operating, while 25 per cent were in between and 14 per cent felt the partners were working together fairly well.

About 16% felt that the inclusive government was working “very well’, 27 per cent felt Zanu-PF was not committed at all to the GNU.

Public opinion showed that 11 per cent thought that the MDC-T was not committed at all, while 25 per cent said the MDC-M was also not committed.

On free political activity, 35 per cent of those polled felt the GNU performed badly.

(Afrik-News)

January 30, 2011January 30, 2011

Development of Science and Technology in Ghana – Part 3

This article will be focusing on tertiary education with emphasis on the universities in Ghana and how they influence the development of Science and Technology. Most of the points which we shall discuss are also shared by universities in other African countries. In Ghana, the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE), under the Ministry of Education is directly responsible for managing tertiary education institutions. The universities are established to teach, educate, research and develop innovative ideas for the benefit of society, but depending on the resources a university has, its role may just be a partial fulfillment of the above functions.

Since the establishment of our public universities (University of Ghana, University of Science and Technology, University of Cape Coast) decades a go, there has been very little discussion about redesigning the curricula at the universities to specifically meet the demands of Science and Technology development in Ghana. Essentially, the same content of science syllabi has been taught over decades and may partially explain our present level of development in Science and Technology. The university graduates who have been produced by this system are not well suited to provide the necessary inputs for the Science and Technological development of our nation. In other words, they are unable to contribute effectively in that direction and the situation is not peculiar to Ghana, but to many other African countries. We need to take a critical look at the academic content of our science syllabi at the universities and restructure them to solve the problems of our country. To achieve this, academia and our local industry should foster good relationships so as to be able to identify specific problems in Science and Technology that need to be addressed in Ghana. The scientific and technological problems identified should then be reorganized and translated into a significant part of the lab and project work done at the universities. Such lab and project work will give room to students and professors alike to research and come up with solutions. A student who has graduated with such expertise is relevant to the economy because his or her skills can be directly employed or deployed to contribute to the Science and Technology development of the country.

This brings into question the state of funding at the universities to pursue Research and Development (R&D). Currently sources for funding R&D at the universities in Ghana mainly come from the government subvention, the GET fund and local industries. But contributions from these sources have not been enough to kick-start vigorous R&D in Ghana. I am suggesting here that a Research and Development Fund (RDF) is set up by the Ghana government and the government must be committed to contributing a reasonable percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Ghana into it annually. This must be seen by the government as building the capacity and capability for Science and Technology development in Ghana. The rest of the contributions to the fund must come from local industries, the African development bank, universities and countries with economic interest in Ghana as well as philanthropists. Researchers will have access to funds from the RDF by developing research proposals (which should contain among others, the objectives of the research, methods to pursue the research, expected outcomes and amount of funds needed for that purpose) and submitting them to an independent body for consideration. Such a body should be made up of varied professionals such as science professors, entrepreneurs and social scientists who are knowledgeable in their field. One key requirement for awarding grant money to an applicant will be that the proposed research should seek to address some of the key problems of our country. To efficiently manage the funds, it will be the duty of government, policy makers and fund administrators to have a scale of preference in place to determine which areas of Science and Technology need urgent funding and/or more funding. Establishment of a robust RDF will be one of the few but effective ways of creating an enabling environment for research into Science and Technology in Ghana. In line with the above, the Government of Ghana should set up a Research, Technology and Innovation center (RTIC) at the universities if it has not already done so, to see to the patenting of ideas which come out of such pursuits and transfer the technology as appropriate.

Funding is not the only factor that limits research. In fact adequate time is also a requirement for research. Where the student: faculty ratio is large (that is a large student population compared to the number of professors), professors have little time to engage in research. This is because the professor spends most of his or her time meeting with students who need assistance and the rest of the time for marking/grading papers. To partially alleviate the situation so as to be able to create some time for research, I recommend the following: first, conditions should be created such that professors teach continuously and intensively for at most two semesters and then the third semester is devoted to intensive research – that is, alternating two semesters of teaching and one semester of research. Second, I recommend that we de-emphasize the essay question format. This is because the essay question format usually requires the experience and knowledge of only the lecturer to mark/grade and can involve a great deal of time if it is to be done objectively, whereas other formats like multiple -answer question could be graded by the Teaching Assistants (TAs). Thus, in any examination we can limit the essay-type questions to about 50 % or less, the professor then provides answer keys for the rest so that TAs can mark/ grade them.

Generally, because of the fast pace of research discoveries in Science and Technology in the developed world, there could be a gap in scientific/technological knowledge between professors in the developing and developed countries – with the professors in the developing countries being at a disadvantage. This calls for several measures. The most basic is that the universities must subscribe to leading journal publications from America and Europe. These publications must be made available in electronic form so that both students and professors can have easy access to them, and it is important that both of them read the material. Seminars must be regularly organized to give room to both students and professors to discuss latest information they have read and gathered from the journals. This will partially bridge the information gap. I am also proposing that, it is about time we look into making some of our professors in the developed countries adjunct professors in our local universities. What that means is that, such professors in the developed countries will be attached to our local universities and they will spend about a month or so annually teaching at our universities. The adjunct professors will help build syllabi, teach and give seminars in areas they think are “new” in their field. This is intended to bridge the science information and technology gap between the developed and developing nations like Ghana. After all, this is not a new concept in other fields – especially soccer. When Ghana and other countries are going to play international games, they invite seasoned professionals playing in other countries to join the national team so as to increase their chances of winning. So we can employ the same technique here with our skilled science and technology professionals in the developed countries.

It is not clear whether the universities in Ghana (and for that matter other African countries) have a reward system in place for the professors teaching and researching on Science and Technology. Here, it is suggested that a well formulated reward system be put in place to acknowledge professors who are able to contribute to the development of Science and Technology in Ghana. Specifically, the system must identify and reward professors who are able to develop innovations which can lead to or has led to better technologies to teach science, process food and medicinal plants, increase the yield of animal and crop farming, tap into wind, solar and biomass energy… just to mention a few. And the reward should come in the form of good salary, research funding, equipment and larger laboratory space.

These factors are likely to attract and retain good professors, and catalyze the Science and Technology development in Ghana and other African countries. Please look out for the next article.

By Nana Osei-Kwabena
sciencnt@yahoo.com

January 30, 2011March 9, 2011

African Geography Made Easy with Geography Games

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10 Days in Africa : A Geography Game for Families, Excellent for Birthdays, All Occasions

Victoria Fynn, Colorado Springs, for TalkAfrique

Most Americans and westerners in general, get a little nervous the first time they have to travel outside their countries. Moreover, if the destination is Africa, then it becomes even more distressful. These days, with social media and technology, it does not need to be a stressful experience. Most people don’t realize that for a mere 30 minute review of the geography of Africa, the adventure can be fun rather than a worry.

Last Christmas my family was given a game called 10 Days in Africa by friends at church. I was amazed how much you can know about Africans and African geography while in the comfort of you couch. The game is designed to have you traveling through Africa. It’s great for both family use and classroom as long as you can have at least 2-4 players.

The core of the game is a board map of Africa, 45 destination tiles representing African countries (Africa actually has 54 countries. I realized they did not consider some of the smaller African countries), 15 transportation tiles and four 10-day card holders.

To cut a simple story short, within one week of having ‘10 Days in Africa’ in our house, my 11-year old son had learnt the locations of 30 African countries on the map. I was proud that he could point to Botswana, Ghana, Eritrea and others with no prompts. It’s an excellent way to learn the geography of Africa. The game is well-built, with no small pieces to lose. Of course you have to be careful with the cards, but they are thick enough that you cannot easily lose them. The game is also very easy to learn, so the boy can easily pull it out and play with his friends when they come over.

For about $16 for a game that is suitable for all ages is just unbeatable. You can set the level of difficulty for different age players. For older players, it recommended that you increase the difficulty when playing with only 2 players.

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