Bilingual education: meeting the challenges of diversity and change in Botswana

This paper reviews the role of language in addressing issues of instruction and diversity towards the achievement of the aims of basic education in Botswana. It also examines the role of indigenous languages in instruction in promoting and sustaining national educational goals as well as the development of a functional citizen. It further reviews the Botswana language in education policy and its implementation. The failures, inconsistencies between policy and practice, and real obstacles are discussed. The need for compromise in the implementation of mother tongue instruction and its implications for literacy are discussed. Finally, suggestions for implementation of mother tongue instruction and model are outlined to ensure that government responds to the needs of her citizens, in the continuous efforts at mobilizing the people for national unity and sustainable development Keywords: Language, Policy, Mother Tongue, Instruction, Bilingual Education, Sustainable Development Journal of Language, Technology & Entrepreneurship in Africa Vol. 1 (2) 2009: pp. 129-14

Pattern of gynaecological consultations at Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Teaching Hospital

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Psychiatric morbidity in hypertensives attending a cardiology outpatient clinic in West Africa

Objectives: To determine kinds of psychiatric morbidity among a sample of stable hypertensive outpatients in a teaching hospital. Materials and Methods: A cross‑sectional study of 260 enrolled outpatients. Psychiatric morbidity was assessed using a 2‑stage evaluation method with the General Health Questionnaire Version 12 (GHQ‑12) and Structured Clinical Interview for DSM‑IV (SCID) to assess for psychiatric diagnosis. Results: 28 (10.8%) of the 260 patients endorsed some psychological distress, with a mean GHQ‑12 score of ≥2. At the second stage, 16.1% (N=13 of 81) interviewed had one or more psychiatric disorder on the SCID. The commonest psychiatric diagnosis made were mood disorders, with current major depressive disorder occurring at a rate of 6.2%. Other disorders found were past major depressive episode (2.5%), organic mood syndrome (3.7%), and somatoform disorder (3.7%). Conclusion: The relationship between hypertension and mood disorders should inform a higher index of suspicion among physicians and general practitioners in order to give patients appropriate treatments or referrals where necessary. It is recommended that collaboration with mental health service providers be encouraged.Keywords: African, cardiology, hypertensive, psychiatric morbidityNigerian Journal of Clinical Practice •Jan-Mar 2012 • Vol 15 • Issue

Construction of Mass Balances of Cocaine in Batch Studies for the Sewage Treatment Works

The desired approach at safeguarding the environment both in control and effective monitoring of chemical discharges is the use of mass balances to account for inflow/outflow of pollutants. Whereas the previous studies were based on several assumptions, the batch studies enabled the construction of mass balances for the Sewage Treatment Work (STWs) using the removal rate data. This study, for the first time measures the rates of removal of cocaine in an STW, and the calculated mass balances were obtained from the removal rate data that were generated. The result of cocaine initial influent of 50 mg L-1 after after 2 hour hydraulic retention times (HRT) produced the final effluents of 110 mg L-1. Projected influent concentrations of cocaine (14, 471 ng L-1) were derived from back-calculation from final effluent concentrations. A useful tool that accounts for the mass-flow of trace drugs in the aquatic environment with minimal errors often due to sampling logistics and desludging process has been provided in this model of mass balance calculations in STWs

An overview of anti-diabetic plants used in Gabon: Pharmacology and Toxicology

© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Ethnopharmacological relevance: The management of diabetes mellitus management in African communities, especially in Gabon, is not well established as more than 60% of population rely on traditional treatments as primary healthcare. The aim of this review was to collect and present the scientific evidence for the use of medicinal plants that are in currect by Gabonese traditional healers to manage diabetes or hyperglycaemia based here on the pharmacological and toxicological profiles of plants with anti-diabetic activity. There are presented in order to promote their therapeutic value, ensure a safer use by population and provide some bases for further study on high potential plants reviewed. Materials and methods: Ethnobotanical studies were sourced using databases such as Online Wiley library, Pubmed, Google Scholar, PROTA, books and unpublished data including Ph.D. and Master thesis, African and Asian journals. Keywords including ‘Diabetes’ ‘Gabon’ ‘Toxicity’ ‘Constituents’ ‘hyperglycaemia’ were used. Results: A total of 69 plants currently used in Gabon with potential anti-diabetic activity have been identified in the literature, all of which have been used in in vivo or in vitro studies. Most of the plants have been studied in human or animal models for their ability to reduce blood glucose, stimulate insulin secretion or inhibit carbohydrates enzymes. Active substances have been identified in 12 out of 69 plants outlined in this review, these include Allium cepa and Tabernanthe iboga. Only eight plants have their active substances tested for anti-diabetic activity and are suitables for further investigation. Toxicological data is scarce and is dose-related to the functional parameters of major organs such as kidney and liver. Conclusion: An in-depth understanding on the pharmacology and toxicology of Gabonese anti-diabetic plants is lacking yet there is a great scope for new treatments. With further research, the use of Gabonese anti-diabetic plants is important to ensure the safety of the diabetic patients in Gabon.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

African Communitarianism and Difference

There has been the recurrent suspicion that community, harmony, cohesion, and similar relational goods as understood in the African ethical tradition threaten to occlude difference. Often, it has been Western defenders of liberty who have raised the concern that these characteristically sub-Saharan values fail to account adequately for individuality, although some contemporary African thinkers have expressed the same concern. In this chapter, I provide a certain understanding of the sub-Saharan value of communal relationship and demonstrate that it entails a substantial allowance for difference. I aim to show that African thinkers need not appeal to, say, characteristically Euro-American values of authenticity or autonomy to make sense of why individuals should not be pressured to conform to a group’s norms regarding sex and gender. A key illustration involves homosexuality

AfriQA: Cross-lingual Open-Retrieval Question Answering for African Languages

African languages have far less in-language content available digitally, making it challenging for question-answering systems to satisfy the information needs of users. Cross-lingual open-retrieval question answering (XOR QA) systems-those that retrieve answer content from other languages while serving people in their native language-offer a means of filling this gap. To this end, we create AFRIQA, the first cross-lingual QA dataset with a focus on African languages. AFRIQA includes 12,000+ XOR QA examples across 10 African languages. While previous datasets have focused primarily on languages where crosslingual QA augments coverage from the target language, AFRIQA focuses on languages where cross-lingual answer content is the only high-coverage source of answer content. Because of this, we argue that African languages are one of the most important and realistic use cases for XOR QA. Our experiments demonstrate the poor performance of automatic translation and multilingual retrieval methods. Overall, AFRIQA proves challenging for state-of-the-art QA models. We hope that the dataset enables the development of more equitable QA technology