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South African teachers are faced with corruption during teacher promotion processes, and this remains unabated. This qualitative paper used three purposively selected case studies of victim teachers to investigate the impact of this corruption on victim teachers. The paper used the Crisis Intervention Theory to underpin the theoretical framework for the analysis. Key informant interviews (KIIs) were administered to a senior union member to solicit crucial data while the primary participants (n=3) were interviewed on a face-to-face approach to collect data. Relevant literature was also used to provide supportive and corroborative scientific propositions. The paper discovered that corruption during teacher promotion processes in the South African Basic Education sector was a reality. However, in some instances, such claims could not be backed by sustainable evidence. Victim teachers have suffered traumatic experiences resulting in stress, health challenges, relational challenges with colleagues and resignations. The department did not assist victim teachers needing emergency counselling and psychological rehabilitation to cope with the emanating pressure. It is recommended that authorities punish perpetrators of corruption. Victim teachers need to be assisted through professional resolving of their grievances and therapeutical intervention. 

This article focused on the under-researched concept of work intensification among domestic workers. Domestic work in Zimbabwe remains a primary source of employment for rudimentary qualified women in both rural and urban areas. This prompted the need for this research to understand better two essential dimensions of an employer-worker relationship, work intensification and job satisfaction. The sample comprised 25 participants, of whom 15 were domestic workers, and 10 were employers of domestic workers. The research used a qualitative approach to understand better the dynamics of work intensification among rural women employed as domestic workers in rural Zimbabwe. Our findings show that employers bring about work intensification in domestic work settings. This is further exacerbated by unpaid overtime hours. Moreover, work intensification in the studied sample deteriorates job satisfaction and relations between employer and employee. As a result, productivity dwindles in the long term because of exhaustion and burnout.

A notable framed literature review accentuates that there is a deficit in the scholarly examination of isiXhosa short stories. Such dearth can be pinned on the agnostic inclination in respect of South African literary criticism – isiXhosa literature included. The fundamental aim of this article is to make a systemic and meticulous examination of one selected isiXhosa short story hinging on dominant patterns such as negative peer pressure and poor parental guidance, among other distinguishable matters. Critical theory is used as a foundational base structure alongside qualitative research methodology for a continued and maintained reading of the short story in a bid to develop a noticeable pattern that will contest the conundrum. The results underline that young people and parents as well as the general society have a solitary responsibility to operate in a synergetic relationship to address some of the problems that continue to sabotage the future of many young men and women. The closing remarks suggest that more scholarly discourse in respect of isiXhosa short stories ought to be advanced. The article makes a notable contribution in that it catalyzes the theoretical and intellectual development of the isiXhosa language and literature.

Controlling a swarm of bee-like nanorobots in search of a target in a human body-like environment is a challenge. The challenge lies in the causal factors of emergence. This research focused on designing and developing a bee-inspired algorithm to provide instructions to coordinate simple and naïve nanorobots in search of a target. Experiments were conducted through simulations to determine the rate at which myriads of agents converge at a target. A maze environment depicting human blood vessels was used to deploy the nanorobots. Different sample population sizes were used, and the results indicate that the bigger the sample size, the higher the convergence speed. Compared with a single complicated robot, the swarm of intelligently controlled nanorobots proved efficient and effective in finding a target in a human-like environment.

This investigation seeks to answer the research question of how employee creativity (EC), employee polychronicity (EP), high-performance human resource practices (HPHRP), and perceived organizational culture (POC) impact work engagement (WE) inside organizations in the 4IR period. Nine (9) businesses in Nigeria’s Lagos, Ogun, and Oyo States served as the study's sample. Data for this examination were gathered using a cross-sectional survey methodology, and respondents who agreed to participate in the investigation were randomly assigned questionnaires. Consequently, a simple random sampling method was used to select participants. Statistical software for social sciences (SPSS version 28) was analyzed on 261 of the 270 distributed questionnaires that were recovered and determined to be useable. This study demonstrated how POC, EC, EP, and HPHRPs all have a substantial, positive, and independent influence on the improvement and sustainability of WE in Nigerian companies operating in the 4IR era. In light of this, the research’s findings have helped sustain workplace engagement during the fourth industrial revolution, notably in Nigeria. The literature on creativity, polychronicity, high-performance human resource strategies, corporate culture, and job engagement has also benefited from its contributions.  

The paper examines the educators’ perceptions of the influence of administrative communication on effective teaching in a selected school in South Africa. The paper adopted a case study research design of a qualitative research approach. Purposive sampling techniques were used to determine eight (8) participants that, comprises of 4 (four) educators and 4 (four) principals of some selected public schools in Buffalo City Metropolitan.  A semi-structured interview was used to elicit information from the participants. The findings indicated that administrative communication influences educators’ task performance and communication is revealed to influence the attainment of goals and school objectives. Also, the principals use different communication channels according to the skills of their educators to make valuable decisions. Educators performed better when they have a sense of belonging and receive constant communication from the principal. It is, however, recommended that the principals should endeavour to understand the type of communication skills possessed by the educators so that such skills will be used constantly to promote effective teaching.

The poetry of Anelisa Thengimfene, through scholarly critique, certifies that applicatory subjects may be enacted in isiXhosa modern literature. Such applicatory subjects breathe pertinence to social issues that predominantly affect the South African youth and other organs of social anatomy. Using Anelisa Thengimfene’s two selected isiXhosa poems (Imfundo and Iziyobisi) , issues concerning education and drug abuse are critiqued in terms of content or subject matter in order to unmask their interfacing meanings. Textual analysis alongside qualitative research methodology is appointed to operate in a synergetic relationship. The principal objective of this article is to exhibit that education and drug addiction are social problems that continue to sabotage the lives of many young men and women in South Africa and elsewhere. The findings and discussions underscore that isiXhosa modern literature should be employed for the fact that it contests contemporary issues that are valuable and worth theoretical and practical debates. As a direct consequence of that, the closing remarks recommend a maintained scrutinisation of isiXhosa modern poetry. The contribution of this intellectual discourse can be pinned on the fact that Anelisa Thengimfene is an emerging isiXhosa literary writer, and therefore, new insights can be enacted from her literary art.

This study explored integrating computational thinking (CT) activities in mathematics learning in Grade 10 classrooms in South African township, suburban and independent schools. The inquiry adopted a mixed method approach as part of an exploratory, descriptive survey design and involved purposively selected Grade 10 learners as participants. Quantitative data were collected through the administration of questionnaires among the participants. Qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews and activities involving integrating computational thinking activities in mathematics learning. The empirical investigation underpins the Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) as the theoretical framework. Key findings from the study revealed that the integration of computational thinking activities in mathematics learning promises to be an effective means to enhance learners’ understanding of mathematics content. In addition, the participants demonstrated a positive disposition towards computational thinking. The participants perceived computational thinking as a vital tool that can be harnessed to develop problem-solving skills in mathematics classrooms. The study findings provide critical theoretical implications for pedagogic innovation.

South Africa has been battling the scourge of the COVID-19 Pandemic which has negatively affected many individuals and families. The South African government imposed a national lockdown to mitigate the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the lockdown also brought more challenges such as increased violence cases. Against this background, this study sought to analyse the COVID-19 lockdown and domestic violence in South Africa. A non-empirical research design was used where documents from search engines such as Google scholar, EBSCOhost and ProQuest were sampled and reviewed using keywords and phrases related to COVID-19, lockdown and domestic violence to filter relevant data, restricted to 2002-2022. The inductive Thematic Content Analysis (TCA) was used to analyze the collected data. Findings reveal that the South African Lockdown has contributed to the rise of domestic violence cases during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results further indicate that victims of domestic violence face psychosocial challenges due to domestic violence. Programs that are aimed at creating awareness and empowering victims of domestic violence are recommended by this study. It is further recommended that policies protecting citizens against domestic violence be reviewed and strengthened.

Recently, many developing nations are disproportionately experiencing the impact of shocks and stressors compared to the rest of the world due to increasing inadequate capability and capacity to withstand the shocks. In particular, farmers and farming households are faced with diverse repeated and unanticipated shocks, which may be socio-economic, ecological and/or environmental in nature. All these shocks become unbearable and worsen in terms of food insecurity. The welfare costs associated with the shocks are significant, attracting humanitarian and development policy experts’ attention to developing suitable interventions to build a resilient food system and society. Consequently, this study analyzed the correlates of farmers’ resilience to food insecurity in South-West Nigeria. Drawing on the data collected from 472 smallholder farmers randomly sampled, descriptive statistics, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s food insecurity experience scale approach, composite score technique, principal component analysis (PCA) and Structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to analyze the data. The findings indicated that more than half (55.3%) of the respondents were inadequate in almost all the resilience indicators and components, had low resilience capacity, and were vulnerable to food shocks and food insecurity. In comparison, only 7.8% have a high resilience capacity to be a buffer against food shocks. 54% of the respondents fall into a high food insecurity category, while only 1.9% fall into a very-low food insecurity continuum. The SEM analysis also revealed that social safety net (p<0.01), climate extreme events (p<0.01), access to essential services (p<0.01), presence of enabling institutional environment (p<0.01), and technical level (p<0.05) made direct impacts on the farmers’ food insecurity status. Conversely, possession of assets (p<0.01), and social capital/neighborhood effect (p<0.1) had inverse impacts on the farmers’ food insecurity status. The study recommended transparently implementing a social protection program to assist the farmer in building buffers against shocks. There is also a greater need for sustained investments across the resilience pillars and indicators to build farmers’ resilience capacity to food insecurity and other shocks.

Organisational functionality is critical for ensuring that the organisation remains focused on providing its performance mandate, especially in times of disruption such as the Corona Virus Pandemic, natural disasters caused by floods, earthquakes, and civil unrest. In times of disruption, organisation could enhance their functionality by applying the Viable System Model (VSM). The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education (KZNDOE), experienced functionality-related challenges during the Pandemic which hindered the delivery of teaching and learning across most schools. Therefore, the study aimed to enhance the department's functionality using the VSM. The target population consisted of 300 senior managers, principals, and educators at the KZNDOE. The study employed an exploratory research design gathering data from 14 respondents through interviews as the data collection instrument. Data were analysed thematically using the NVivo 12 model. The study findings revealed that KZNDOE was not prepared to deal with the complexity presented by the Corona Virus Pandemic due to a dysfunctional structure, lack of resources, and skills incompetency to deal with complexity. To address the challenges, the department reviewed the functional structure which was last reviewed in 2011 to one that is adaptive in responding to the complex environment. The review would include the change of structure by creating new structures within the department that can deal with the Pandemic. For example, the study recommended a specific structure that deals with enhancing performance, Corona Virus Pandemic communication network, empowerment structures for educators, and structures to provide for remote learning and pre-learning materials. The study however recommended that a similar study could be conducted in other provinces to have a balanced view before making national inferences.

This study aims to determine the procurement process challenges for improving the Department of Correctional Services (DCS). All the participants recruited by the researcher were not forced to participate or sign the consent form. The researcher considered only voluntary participation and the participants were requested to sign the POPI Act consent forms before conducting the face-to-face interview. The study adopted a qualitative research methodology to get a comprehensive and deeper understanding of the challenges and effects of the procurement process. Information was collected from the key informants using Face-to-face interviews; the key informants were possible suppliers, chief executors, executors, and directors. Managers specializing in the procurement field and potential suppliers were chosen as respondents to obtain sentiments toward the procurement process. The study established that (DCS) is one of the national departments faced with the challenges of improving the procurement process. Hence the case study focuses on procurement process challenges for the improvement of the DCS. The study concluded that most of the fruitless, wasteful and irregular, and unauthorized expenditures incurred in DCS are caused by a lack of availability of resources such as employment finances and a lack of technology due to resistance to change from the top management to the lower level.

 In this article, we discuss teaching strategies that high-performing mathematics teachers use to assist learners in solving challenging 3-dimensional (3D) trigonometry concepts more effectively. High school learners often find 3D trigonometry challenging. For this study, a purposively qualitative research design was chosen. Five mathematics teachers were interviewed, and 381 scripts of the learners were analysed with the mathematical language error, procedural error, conceptual error, and application error (MPCA error) analysis protocol. Results from this study showed that using concrete models to illustrate the dimensions of 3D concepts was helpful for high-performing schoolteachers. The mathematical knowledge and the quality of mathematical instructions used by the teacher to unpack the 3D trigonometry concepts were found to play a pivotal role in the learners’ understanding. The teachers’ in-depth knowledge of error analysis was valuable, while the teachers’ ability to implement blended learning was crucial for learners. When a misconception occurs amongst learners, it should be challenged or contrasted with the correct conception. An understanding of learners’ errors in 3D trigonometry helps teachers minimise learners’ errors.

The understanding of housing insecurity in the context of poverty reduction remains an important area, especially in the conceptualisation emanating from the animal with multiple head metaphor. Poverty is argued to be viewed as an animal with multiple heads in its multidimensional conceptualisation. We contend that a misdiagnosis in the Multidimensional poverty index (MPI) recognises housing insecurity as a leg of living standards (the other two in the MPI are education and health). The argument that housing should be considered as a dimension or a head, according to the Household Housing Insecurity Index (HHII), emanates from the basic needs understanding, where housing stands among food and health, even higher than education. This paper first presents the Household Housing Insecurity Index (HHII) in the context of multidimensional poverty. Then it uses components of the HHII with available data from Statistics South Africa's general household survey to analyse the housing insecurity profile of households in South Africa collected during the covid-19 pandemic. This helps to paint an initial picture of the impact of the pandemic. Initial because there are still lagged effects unfolding beyond the immediate short-run implications. The Regression analysis results show that total household income, the material used for the construction of the house, crowding, gender and population group are significant predictors of household housing insecurity.

This paper presents the effects of technology integration in the learning and teaching of Mathematics in first- and second-year mathematics students. The technology-based learning environment has been the demand in groundwork learning to shape a more active approach to students' learning process. The South African government has made an obligation to advance its people's Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills and to connect the digital gap by targeting previously disadvantaged groups. The interpretive approach was used with face-to-face interviews to collect data from ten participants. Six participants were interviewed by the lecturers teaching mathematics and four students doing mathematics in one of the rural universities in the Eastern Cape. Findings confirmed that (i) Teacher technology competence and lack of resources are barriers to technology learning implementation. (ii) Consequently, it became evident that learners had a robust positive perception of computer usage in Mathematics learning and teaching even though almost all had little or no access to computers in their schools. It is recommended that the university should ensure that all students have the data card loaded with uncapped data for learning and teaching to run smoothly.

The peaceful environment of South African communities witnessed sudden civil unrest that led to the wanton destruction of public and private properties between 9-17 July 2021. The civil unrest which aggravated on daily basis within this period also culminated in massive looting in both KwaZulu-Natal Province and Gauteng Province. During the disturbances, the protestors looted and set many stores and warehouses ablaze. The turmoil was also extended to some schools, with some private and public schools looted and vandalized. Hence, this article aimed to explore the impact of this unrest on schools and to establish how teaching and learning had been affected in these South African institutions. Therefore, in this systematic review, we analysed the impact of political unrest on the education system in South Africa. 139 schools were affected in Kwazulu-Natal, with six schools razed by fire, 30 damaged, and 95 looted. Thus, a total of 139 schools were affected. However, at the time of this article, the degree of damage in 8 other Schools was unknown. It was noted that, of the six schools set ablaze, four were only slightly damaged and two were entirely destroyed. Furniture and other items such as food items the Schools Nutrition Program and offices were destroyed. Doors, windows, and others were also broken. This indicated that learners would be temporarily relocated from the burnt schools to locations where the government provided temporary classrooms for these schools. Conversely, rebuilding the damaged buildings and replacement of stolen school supplies will cost the Department of Basic Education millions of rands.

In the analysis of the South African NSC diagnostic reports, the Department of Education prepared areas of learners’ struggle have proved to repeat themselves from 2017 to 2020. The classroom practices of Life Sciences teachers, focusing on teacher knowledge, were observed in a sample of schools in the province of Gauteng, South Africa. The investigation aimed to investigate these practices of Life Sciences teachers and consequently diagnose teaching difficulties. Data was collected through interviews and observations in a multi-case study approach and analyzed using Mudau’s (2016) Classroom Practice Diagnostic Framework. This study reveals that teachers’ classroom practices contribute to the teaching difficulties they experience when considering teachers’ knowledge of the Life Sciences content, the teaching context, and learner understanding.

The COVID-19 outbreak has resulted in a global public health and mental health disaster and a massive negative psychosocial experience for students. The counteractive measures are mainly on epidemiology, prevention, and management of the COVID-19 infection, with little attention on mental health. From this background, this study sought to assess the effect of COVID-19 on students’ mental health during quarantine and isolation. An exploratory qualitative research design was applied to determine how COVID-19 affected students' mental health during quarantine and isolation. Purposive sampling was used to obtain cases deemed rich in information to ensure that saturation was reached. Thus, 12 students participated in the study. Data was collected through semi-structured face-to-face interviews. The interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analysed using Tesch’s method of data analysis. The trustworthiness of data was ensured through credibility, dependability, confirmability, and transferability. The study revealed that participants experienced behavioural changes during quarantine and isolation. Irregular sleeping patterns, difficulty in sleeping, and decreased appetite were the behavioural changes that the participants reported. The study also highlighted the coping techniques used by the participants during their quarantine and isolation periods. Religion and support from healthcare workers, family, and friends were some coping strategies that most participants believed to be beneficial. It is concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic poses an unprecedented threat to students’ mental health during quarantine and isolation.

Entrepreneurship is crucial for both growing the economy and decreasing the crushing effects of poverty and unemployment. Consequently, higher education institutions have a critical role to play in inculcating entrepreneurial skills in students who may find it challenging to gain employment. This research examined the impact of socio-demographic variables (age, gender, level of study, academic discipline, race and nationality) on entrepreneurship intention. A descriptive quantitative research design was adopted to collect data from a simple random sample of 332 higher education students. This study's findings show no significant difference amongst the respondents in terms of gender, age, race and entrepreneurial intention. On the other hand, the results revealed a statistically significant difference between the respondents' nationality, academic discipline, level of study and entrepreneurship intention. Therefore, higher education institutions should pay attention to the demographics of students to avoid prejudices and to have targeted interventions that will arouse their interest in entrepreneurship. The findings of this study could assist institutional managers and policy-makers in putting in place strategies that could help higher education students actively participate in entrepreneurial activities on campus and treat entrepreneurship as an alternative career.

Prior to China’s reform, the poverty count surpassed that of the whole African continent. However, within five years, the Chinese could reverse this narrative. Between 1980 and 2020, China lifted a staggering 800 million citizens out of poverty. By February 2021, the Chinese declared that the war on ‘absolute poverty’ had been won when measured using the standard equivalence of $2.30 a day per person. In consonance with the Chinese feat on poverty, the study examines the strategy adopted in defeating poverty and highlights fundamental lessons that rural developmental stakeholders in South Africa may embrace in achieving a similar feat. To achieve this aim, the study adopted a literature review alongside a desktop analysis in deducing critical lessons from the Chinese war on poverty that may apply to rural developmental stakeholders in South Africa. Hence, an extensive assemblage of earlier studies on Chinese poverty alleviation strategies was looked into systematically. The study highlights potential challenges the South African rural developmental stakeholders may face in an attempt to replicate the Chinese stratagem. The study thus concludes with practical steps rural developmental stakeholders in South Africa may adopt to create viable rural spaces devoid of egregious forms of poverty.