Background: Post-apartheid, understanding and management of intellectual disability remain poor in South Africa, complicated by various contextual and cultural explanations used to describe and conceptualize this condition. Method: We conducted 20 semi-structured interviews with primary caregivers and parents of children with intellectual…

Purpose: In recent years, South Africa has continued to experience a high rate of young people who are not in employment, education, or training (NEET). The emergence of the concept 'NEET' affords researchers an opportunity to more closely examine the life situations and experiences of this population sub-group. The purpose of this paper is thus…

This book reviews trends in household well-being in Africa during the 1990s. Using the better data sets now available, the main factors behind observed poverty changes are examined in eight countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, Mauritania, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. A broad view of poverty is taken, which includes income poverty and…

Pedagogical contingency policy planning in open distance and e-learning plays a critical role in achieving the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, with the aim to stem poverty, protect the planet, foster gender equality, defend and promote cultures and cultural understanding, and ensure…

Universities contribution to society development in Africa has been a subject of discussion since many countries attained independence in the 1960s. The university was seen as having a function of emancipating society from poverty and ignorance. The premise of this view was based on the university's role in creating the ruling elite and knowledge…

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have become the backbone of industrialized economies. This trend is also evident in South Africa, where, however, there are more closures than expansions: it is believed that only around 1% of the micro-enterprises started with fewer than five employees grow to employ up to 10 people. Consequently, these…

Education is a major tool for development and equalizer. This somewhat accounts for the quest for education, at various levels, including adults who were unable to attain an education degree earlier in life. Thus, Adult Education and Training (AET) programmes are established in different community centres to promote adult literacy in different…

With eight years to go before the goal of the Education 2030 Agenda are due to be achieved, Africa continent is still facing many different challenges in the education and training sector. Which priorities should we, the Africa Office of the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), as a privileged partner of ministries in charge of…

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the business operations of informal clothing manufacturing micro enterprises (CMMEs) and identifies ways to support owners to achieve economic sustainability. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative approach applying a case study design was used to study the business operations of 13 informal CMME owners…

One feature of deprived communities is a lack of social capital. Yet, research reports that social capital contributes to poverty reduction and positively impacts schools and student educational outcomes. In South Africa, there is a deficit in social capital in under-resourced and underperforming schools that limits students' educational…

This article posits that schooling in Sub-Saharan Africa has so far failed to yield the results expected of it on two grounds. First, the population of persons accessing both basic education and other levels of education is negligible in comparison with those who ought to access them (1 out of every 4 primary school age children; less than half of…

In recent years there has been growing awareness about teenage motherhood, a phenomenon constructed as an economic and social concern in South Africa. This article presents a narrative inquiry undertaken with seven teenage mothers on their experiences of schooling and motherhood at a rural secondary school in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The study…

The advent of democracy in South Africa triggered notable reforms to the financing of quality education, and curriculum design and innovation. The ulterior motive behind this study was to underscore the correlation between inadequate financial resources and learners' achievement. School finance reform was found to contribute to learner achievement…

The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of early childhood development (ECD) centre staff in providing care and learning support to children living in a high-risk, low socioeconomic community. We interviewed 14 staff from an ECD centre. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed thematically. We derived four…

In South Africa, the educational attainment of African children has been a focal point of policy and research since the end of apartheid in 1994. Individual and policy-level determinants of child development and educational outcomes have been exhaustively investigated. A less researched perspective is the role of community and household…