Africa

Photo Cred: Susan Yin South African universities suffer from serious traffic congestion, lack of parking spaces and high pollution levels. Even though many staff and students aspire to own a car, arguably the bicycle offers huge potential to transform the environment and culture of campuses. In this episode Prof Mehita Iqani and Dr Njogu Morgan, a post-doctoral researcher based at the South Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning at Wits University, discuss cycling as a lifestyle, health benefit, environmentally friendly alternative to the car. They look into the factors which kind of transport people lean towards and reasons behind the choices. Both cycling enthusiasts, they round up a dozen reasons to leave that car in the driveway and consider the affordable bicycle as a way to get around. [soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/324250911" params="auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%" height="450" iframe="true" /] Learn more about cycling: http://www.juca.org.za/ http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23800127.2017.1283122 https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/may/24/johannesburg-africa-first-cycle-friendly-megacity-bicycles Produced, […]

Photo Cred: Garrett Garms In 2016 the Department of Higher Education released a report which stated that almost half (47.9%) of the students who start university do not finish their degrees and a large majority of these are black. Dr Nosipho Mngomezulu took time to discuss these statistics with Leila Abdool Gafoor, the Team Leader for Psychological Services at PsyCaD at University of Johannesburg to interrogate why this is so and why particularly students from historically disadvantaged background make up the majority of the dropouts. Dr Mngomezulu also looks into how universities through mentorship can support students in graduate programmes who come with little understanding of the complex landscape of higher education and how different philosophies in graduate programs drive expectations for academic excellence and ideal career pathways. [soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/323048958" params="auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%" height="450" iframe="true" /] PsyCad will be hosting a colloquium on […]

Photo Cred: Marianne de Klerk Are universities stuck in an ivory tower, cut off from day to day reality? In this episode, Prof Mehita Iqani discusses how research should and could be engaged with “communities”. The guest is University of Cape Town Associate Professor, Tanja Winkler, deputy dean of the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment. They speak about how universities, through scholarly work conducted in a mutually beneficial partnership between traditionally trained "experts" and members of a community, can work together for development and empowerment. Prof Winkler agues that both parties should collaborate on an equal footing to identify problems which the communities face and work together to find solutions based on equality, and social justice. Produced, scheduled, edited and researched by: Simbarashe Honde [soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/321986082" params="auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%" height="450" iframe="true" /]  

Photo Cred: Juliette Leufke Online learning takes the form of a virtual classroom in which students from across the globe can watch, listen to a lecture at a time convenient to them, at their own pace. It allows participants to interact with one another and engage with resources in work groups. The University of Cape Town offers a, Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) designed for self-directed distance learning that offers free online courses with no entry requirements. According to UCT's Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching website, the content of the MOOC is as innovative as the technology used to disseminate it. The idea behind the course is to examine the intersection of medicine, medical anthropology and the creative arts. Dr Nosipho Mngomezulu, spoke at length with Susan Levine, an Associate Professor of Anthropology in the School of African and Gender […]

Photo Cred: Suvan Chowdhury Women scientists have a critical role to play in Africa’s development. They have made significant strides in Science making incredible progress across the continent. Yet, despite this advancement, the reality remains that many countries are simply not equipped, or prepared, to accommodate this growth. In a 2016 Unicef funded study looking into, “Women in science in Africa”,  found that women remain heavily underrepresented. Africa is a vast continent of diverse cultures and traditions, which in turn bring unique challenges, complex policies and practises that inhibit women compared to their male counterparts, yet despite these factors women continue to overcome the barriers and obstacles. In this particular episode, Dr Nosipho Mngomezulu celebrates one such woman.  Dr Nicole de Wet a population studies expert who has been working on the demographic and socioeconomic determinants of adolescent health outcomes […]