Browsing by Author "Lihamba, Amandina"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    The Challenges of Affirmative Action in Tanzanian Higher Education Institutions: A Case Study of the University of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
    (Elsevier, 2006) Lihamba, Amandina; Mwaipopo, Rosemarie; Shule, Lucy
    This article discusses affirmative action programmes introduced and designed to increase female students' enrolment at the University of Dar es Salaam. The assessment of the interventions is made within the context and perceptions of their implementation. A key finding of this study is that affirmative action programmes have succeeded in increasing female enrolment generally and in traditionally male-dominated specializations such as Engineering, Medicine, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics specifically. For example, as a result of affirmative action female enrolment in the Faculty of Science rose from 16% in 1996 to 27% in 2003/2004 and from 7% in 1996 to 13% in 2003/04 in the Engineering Faculty. However, as this article shows, there is much more to gender equity than just numbers. Qualitative factors such as participation in academic life as students or staff within and outside the classroom, the living environment, pedagogy and institutional micro-politics continue to pose challenges for gender equity and equality. Limitations in programme scale, infrastructure and resources also raise important questions regarding the sustainability of these affirmative action programmes. Therefore, while affirmative action can be seen as positive efforts to offset a historical imbalance, it still is confronted with and opens up new debates on privilege and discrimination amidst concerns with sustainability in a third world context.
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    Equity and Equality in Access to Higher Education: The Experiences of Students with Disabilities in Tanzania
    (2011) Mwaipopo, Rosemarie; Lihamba, Amandina; Njewele, Delphine C.
    Social development policies in Tanzania are exemplary in terms of their recognition of the rights of access to higher education institutions by specific demographic groups. Policy documents such as the 2005 National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty (known as the MKUKUTA) and the 2004 National Policy on Disability emphasise this necessity and outline the government’s commitment to ensure that people who are socially disadvantaged, including those with disabilities, can equally access higher education. The process through which this is achieved is, however, less explicit and is therefore difficult to measure in relation to what students with disabilities actually experience as they not only pursue, but also experience higher education. Using both qualitative and quantitative data, this article analyses the process of access into higher education institutions and outcomes in terms of representation in higher education institutions by students with disabilities. In doing so, it seeks to explore the meaning and outcomes of policies related to higher education institutions in Tanzania in terms of their stated equality ideals and achievements in practice.
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    Gender Equity in Commonwealth Higher Education: Emerging Themes in Nigeria, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Uganda
    (2004) Gunawardena, Chandra; Kwesiga, Joy; Lihamba, Amandina; Morley, Louise; Odejide, Abiola; Shackleton, Lesley
    This paper is based on interim findings from a research project on gender equity in higher education in Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Nigeria. The project, funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and co-ordinated by the Centre for Higher Education Studies at the University of London Institute of Education, is investigating interventions for change in relation to access, curriculum transformation and staff development. It is also searching and analysing published and unpublished literature from low-income Commonwealth countries on gender equity. Themes are emerging in the research. These include the international policy drivers for gender equity, representation of women in senior academic and management posts; access as a redistributive measure, gender violence, organisational culture, micropolitics and the gendered division of labour in academia. There are concerns about the current distribution patterns of women in universities as students, academics and managers and the qualitative experiences of women in Commonwealth universities. The research project offers the opportunity to gain comparative insights across the Commonwealth. It aims to contribute to multilateral dissemination and scholarship in an area that has not been traditionally researched.
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    Gender Perspectives in Arts and Cultural Education
    (2007) Lihamba, Amandina
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    Health and The African Theatre
    (1986) Lihamba, Amandina
    This article explores the representation in performance and theatre of three contrasting approaches to our understanding of disease causality -- explanations that invoke material and non-material forces in a traditional cosmology where all phenomena are interrelated, contemporary biomedical explanations that situate causation in material forces alone and that isolate individual responsibility, and socialist explanations that seek underlying economic and political causes of community ill health. Written by an active performer, the article is based on her observation of workshops and performances, on interviews, published and unpublished reports, and an analysis of contemporary plays by Soyinka, Hussein and Muhando. Different approaches to health, disease and cure are reflected in different infrastructures created to deal with them, which are informed by political, economic and social structures and attitudes. These attitudes and structures find expression within general culture and within specific cultural expressions such as theatre. This paper looks at attitudes towards health, disease and cure manifested in traditional and contemporary African performances. It is argued that traditional performances reveal attitudes that arise from an understanding of interrelationships among universal phenomena, whereas most contemporary theatre carries attitudes that have a limited socio-political framework or that remain symbolic representations of interrelationships.
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    The Performing Arts And Development
    (1985) Lihamba, Amandina
    This paper tries to link two dynamic processes which exhibit a dialectical relationship. Development means changes, a re-alignment of forces to improve man's lot and enable him to come to full realisation of himself. It aims at his total freedom through the exploitation of his powers and potential, a historical process which is economic, political and cultural. All man's activities are manifestations of growth or retardation within the process of development. The perfoming arts, dance, mu&ic and theatre, are cultural activities which contribute towards and at the same time manifest socio-economic development. These are social historical phenomena which embody man's expressive capacity at each moment of his development. An understanding of the proper role of the performing arts, therefore, calls for an analysis of these elements not only as political and ideological phenomena but as aesthetic processes as well.
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    Setting the Scene
    (2007) Morley, Louise; Leach, Fiona; Lugg, Rosemary; Lihamba, Amandina; Opare, James; Bhalalusesa, E. P.; Forde, Linda D.; Egbenya, Godwin; Mwaipopo, Rosemarie
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    Widening Participation in Higher Education in Ghana and Tanzania: Developing an Equity Scorecard
    (2007) Lugg, Rosemary; Morley, Louise; Leach, Fiona; Lihamba, Amandina; Opare, James; Mwaipopo, Rosemarie
    This three and a half year ESRC-DFID funded project (RES-167-25-0078) ‘Widening Participation in Higher Education in Ghana and Tanzania: Developing an Equity Scorecard’ is a new evidence base contributing to making higher education more socially inclusive in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/wphegt). It is a mixed methods study of one public and one private case study university in each country, combining: 200 student life history interviews, comprising interviews with 119 students from public universities and 81 from private universities, registered on different programmes and with a diversity of backgrounds including under-represented groups such as women, mature, low socio-economic status and disabled students. Students were asked about their experiences of primary, secondary and higher education, with questions about their motivations, transitions, support, decision-making and first impressions of higher education, its impact on them and their future plans. 200 key staff and policymakers interviews, comprising 172 semi-structured interviews with senior academics, lecturers and staff working closely with students in the four case study institutions and 28 interviews with policymakers. Academic staff and policymakers were asked about policies, interventions, strategies and challenges for widening participation, and the part that their universities had played in working towards the Millennium Development Goals. 100 Equity Scorecards compiled largely from raw data on admission/access, retention, completion and achievement, for four programmes of study in relation to three structures of inequality: gender, socio-economic status (SES) and age. The research questions included: investigating which social groups are currently and traditionally under-represented as students in the case study institutions and whether these correlate with wider national and international patterns of social exclusion; how the case study institutions are interpreting and responding to the Millennium Development Goals; and if there is a relationship between learners’ prior experiences of education, their socioeconomic backgrounds and their experiences and achievement in education. Questions have also been posed about what mechanisms for support have been put in place for ‘nontraditional’ students to facilitate retention and achievement and how ‘non-traditional’ students might experience these interventions (see Appendix 1). Diverse stakeholders have been asked about their perceptions of the main barriers to participation for under-represented groups and what strategies the case study institutions can develop to improve the recruitment, retention and achievement of students from non-traditional backgrounds. Via the field work and its analysis, the project has produced statistical data on patterns of participation, retention and achievement and has aimed to build theory about socio-cultural aspects of higher education in Ghana and Tanzania.