Böcker av Paul Mupa

Higher education has direct bearing on society for its growth and socio-economic and political development. However, the proliferation of HE institutions, though a proud phase in the economic regeneration of the world, brought in its trail innumerable traits and accountability challenges. The need for ensuring high caliber of educational service is more imminent now than never before since quality of HE falls short of attaining the global-level excellence. Diminishing funding in HE from the governments caused the mushrooming of private institutions across the globe and society bear the brunt of the poor quality service yet they deserve the best. Therefore, quality has become a competitive weapon for the institutions to serve and attract their primary customers (students). This book, a timely contribution to the debate on quality in HE, seeks to help institutions of higher learning provide quality service to their clients. Though quality is contextual, this book has been written to an international audience, making use of research information from across the globe in order to widen the options for quality in HE.

The current crisis and unending talks between bickering political parties in Zimbabwe, Africa and other third world countries prompted us in the Zimbabwe Open University, Masvingo Campus Academic Research and Publications Coordinating Committee (ZOU MC ARPCC) to think of researching and writing a text on conflict management for tertiary curricula. This is the product of the effort. Our intention is to inculcate new thinking and progressive ways of dealing with conflict among youth and other stakeholders. The African political terrain has been characterized by intolerance, violence, murders and sexual abuse among other inhuman behaviours. Right from the imposition of colonialism through the first chimurengas, the armed struggles (second chimurengas), gukurahwindis, and the imposed economic structural adjustment programmes (ESAPs) to the current political impasse, it has been violence through and through. We strongly believe that there is a better way to deal with our differences. We pray to God that one day sanity will prevail.

Th1s study was prompted by continuous enrolment expansion at primary school level in Zimbabwe. The study employed the descriptive survey design. To collect data, both open-ended and closed questionnaires were used as the instruments. Stratified random sampling was used to select 30 teachers from a population of teachers in 33 primary schools that were under study. The major findings of the research are that large classes reduce interaction patterns and levels between the teacher and the student and among students themselves. Teachers find it difficult to handle large classes and this compromises quality and opportunity to learn. The teacher goes out of gear and become disengaged when faced with a large class. Class size has a negative effect on opportunity to learn. The study recommends that the Ministry of Education should stick to policy guidelines as regards pupil- teacher ratio. Parents should be involved in resource mobilization in order to improve the learning opportunity of every child.

Organisations need magnetic leadership that attracts followers. The growing consensus among organisations is that problems encountered in organisations are a result of lack of leadership. The view that organisations are viewed as learning organisations depends upon the influence and direction of leadership. Effective leadership removes the roadblocks and clears the stumps and blocks that deter followers from goal achievement. This book attempts to show the critical role of leadership in organisations and is directed at practising, aspiring and students of leadership in any organisation.

This study sought to investigate the challenges faced by the informal cross border traders (ICBTs) plying the Harare -Johannesburg route from 2006 to 2010. The study shows that informal cross border traders encounter a lot of challenges during the conduct of their business. Some of these challenges, in terms of severity include border formalities, lack of government support and high transport costs. Informal traders are not organized and do not join associations. This study recommends that informal cross border traders'' associations embark on recruitment campaigns to educate the informal cross border traders about the benefits they get by belonging to an association. It also encourages associations to come up with savings clubs to mobilize funds from members for loaning to those members in need at an interest. Finally it also recommends that the government come up with a set of relaxed regulations that would create a non¿formal board to oversee the informal trade activities. It would then make it mandatory for informal traders to register with the board, making it easier to monitor, regulate and intervene.