Search results

The Government of Eswatini (GoE) civil service wage bill has continued to rise in recent years. The personnel budget is still the largest single recurrent expenditure item in the budget in Eswatini. To control the civil service wage bill, the GoE introduced Lean Service Principle through Management Services Division (MSD). The civil service wage bill continues to rise despite the implementation of the Lean Service Principle. So far, there are no tangible outcomes that indicate that the principles applied have been effective in the reduction of the wage bill. Thus, this research aims to examine the question of why the Lean Service Principle failed to effectively slow the rampant growth of the civil service wage bill in the Kingdom of Eswatini. This study used the quantitative research approach to collect data on amounts spent on wages, the percentage increase of the wage bill for the period 2010–2017, and the percentage increase in the number of civil servants as per the Establishment Registers, 2010–2017. The study investigated the wage bill push factors, the shortcomings of the Lean Service Principle, and the Just-In-Time (JIT) Technique in the management and reduction of the GoE civil service wage bill. The study found the MSD has been applying the wrong methodologies in wage bill control, which has been evident in the continued yearly increase of the wage bill. The study recommends that the MSD should consider the utilisation of Human Resources Forecasting and Planning Techniques instead of using the Lean Service Principle and the JIT technique. This study will enable the Cabinet to make an appropriate decision on the mandate and future of the MSD, as there have been growing calls to disband the division due to the failure to reduce and/or control the wage bills as that is the core mandate of the division.

Leadership development is an essential yet complex process that manifests over a long period of time. Owusu et al. assert that in African researchers’ graduate programs, the learners receive theory, research methods and grant writing instruction without significant attention to leadership development. So, how do researchers, academics, administrators, and think-tanks plan and carry out leadership–followership development within organizational and transitional justice fields? The research capacity building of young African scholars in the knowledge production community has the potential to lead to the development and articulation of norms and values that will seek to address fundamental issues of transformation, direct, structural, and cultural violence, and assist in addressing a wide range of problems associated with violence of social injustice. We draw lessons from the Africa Young Graduate Scholars (AYGS) 2017 conference and writing retreat, which drew 22 young scholars (with 10 females and 12 males) who had completed original research and five facilitators (two females and three males) from universities in Botswana, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kenya, South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe for developing research leader–follower insights.

Building research leadership–followership capacity in knowledge production communities in the context of conflict prevention is crucial for establishing sustainable peace. It is recommended that: (1) the AYGS be replicated on other parts of the continent and throughout the diaspora; (2) publications from emerging leaders and followers in the research/knowledge production community begin to increase; and (3) establishment and expansion of leadership development programs for research leaders and followers in African graduate programs.

Higher education in Botswana is believed to transform life through the provision of job opportunities for those with the privilege to access it. Parents believe that when their children graduate with degrees, this will alleviate them from poverty, and hence encourage their children to work hard and perform to their best ability. Higher education is viewed as the pinnacle a good life – an assurance of a better future for the extended family kinship.

Unfortunately, access to higher education institutions is a prerogative of those who can attain high marks in their last national or international examinations. When students do well, they receive full scholarship from the Botswana Government to attend any institution of higher learning of their choice. However, most students from the marginalized or minority groups tend to fail to access higher education due to various socio-economic challenges they face.

Development is a dynamic concept that pertains the evolution of human societies. Over the past few years policy makers, as well as academics, have incorporated a very important, yet sometimes neglected, component in the concept of development which is environmental costs and sustainability. One of the key aspects that affects sustainability is energetic consumption, therefore our aim is to determine if changes in oil, coal, and gas, prices during the period 2000–2010 influenced sustainable development.

We modified the Human Development Index (HDI) by adding energy consumption component, and propose what we call the Modified Human Sustainable Development Index (HSDI) which captures a broader definition of sustainable development. Then we employ econometric techniques to study the effects of changes in commodity prices on our index in the short run.

Our results show a nonlinear effect of commodity prices on our index, low and middle-income countries display a positive effect of prices on our HSDI, with smaller effects in the former ones, while high-income countries do not seem to exhibit a significant effect. While low and middle-income countries are typically commodity producers.

Middle-income countries are able to obtain larger benefits in terms of sustainable development due to a better institutional structure which constitutes an opportunity for them in the aftermath of the crisis.

Middle- and low-income countries should design policies that enable them to take advantage of the rises and protect their economies from the falls.

We address the problem of sustainable development and commodity prices in a post-crisi world, which was not reviewed in the literature. In addition we build a measurement of the Human Sustainable Development Index that considers energy consumption as one of its factors. Which is in line with previous results about energy consumption and the Human Development Index.

This chapter examines the similarities and differences in teacher education between Botswana and Lesotho to unravel “best fit” strategies specific to the needs of teacher education in different locals or populations within these two countries. We begin with an overview of the social, political, and economic contexts of each country as a lens by which to understand some of the current challenges teachers face within each country. We review the research literature to understand what teacher preparation looks like at the tertiary level and how teachers in the field maintain current knowledge and pedagogical skills in regard the content they teach. We will argue that when teaching pedagogy at the tertiary level maintains an authoritarian model of teaching with content centered, didactic instruction, and teacher-centered pedagogy there is little ability for national change in education. Likewise, if teacher education does not embed the concept of life-long learning and is not supported by both a national and local commitment to support teacher’s continued professional development the ability to sustain any change in education is thwarted.

This chapter addresses the issue of teacher quantity, quality and their interrelationships. It first sets out the scope of the ‘quantity gap’ in primary teachers in sub-Saharan Africa, from 1991 to the present and towards the EFA target date of 2015. It then assesses different measures of ‘quality’ among current primary teaching forces. It begins by looking at how countries compare in terms of the percentage of teachers that meet nationally specific criteria of a ‘qualified’ teacher and as linked to an internationally comparable benchmark of teachers’ educational attainment. The next section looks beyond minimum qualification standards to examine the educational qualifications that teachers actually based on data covering 13 South and East African countries. Among the same group of countries, it opens a discussion concerning direct measures of teachers’ knowledge of science and mathematics and academic skills. The final section then examines measures of in-service training or the continuing professional development of the current teaching force based on the results of a regional assessment study.

Migration is one of the most significant domestic, development and foreign policy issues in the world today. According to the International Organization for Migration, 1 out of every 35 persons worldwide is an international migrant. This chapter discusses the complex issue of international teacher migration, and reports findings from empirical research conducted in the UK to illuminate the socio-cultural and economic contexts of teacher migration in both industrialized nations and in developing countries. This research, commissioned by the Commonwealth Secretariat, served to inform development of a Commonwealth Teacher Recruitment Protocol, which was adopted by 53 countries in late 2004. This chapter serves to disseminate the results of this research to a larger international audience. It also provides an analysis of the process in which educational research informs international policy development.

This study aims at establishing a linkage between IFRS adoption and environmental pollution in Africa. More so, the role of institution was emphasized as a possible ameliorator of environmental pollution in the face of IFRS adoption.

The empirical model builds on the traditional EKC hypothesis, by including IFRS adoption variable and an interaction term (which captures the multiplicative between IFRS adoption and institutions). Data was gathered for 47 African countries for the period 2001–2013. The SGMM technique was used in the estimation process.

The robust estimation reveals that a positive and significant linkage exist between IFRS adoption and environmental pollution. The interactive variable also shows that the effect of IFRS on the environment will reduce when institutions quality (in the form of bureaucratic corruption) is addressed.

The linkage between IFRS and the environment has not received empirical attention. This is partly due to the fact that accounting phenomenon is rarely linked to macroeconomic outcomes. However, there is a rising interest in the role of accounting institutions on economic outcomes and this study contributes sufficiently to this budding body of knowledge.